[Report in regard to the discovery of anaesthesia].

  • United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Anaesthesia.
Date:
[1854]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report in regard to the discovery of anaesthesia]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    safe, therefore, to conclude that it had not, within his Icnowledge. He says that he suggested it to Dr. Marcy, who advised against its use, so he continued the use of nitrous oxyd. This first paper is something nearer the time of his experiments, and also some- thing nearer the truth, than that published in Galignani's Mes- senger—yet a careful examination of this will show that it is very far from containing a true presentation of the actual facts as they occurred. Dr. Wells took his idea from Dr. Cooley. And, first. One, on reading that paper, would be led to suppose that Dr. Wells was brought to the opinion of the ansesthetic pro- perties of nitrous oxyd, and his choice of that element as a means of producing anaesthesia, by an elaborate process of inductive reasoning; whereas, in truth, he took it from the suggestion of Dr. Samuel A. Cooley, made to him during an exhibition of the laughing gas. I repeat the paragraph of Dr. Wells's letter, that the evidence may be applied to it the more closely: While reasoning from analogy, I was led to believe that the inhaling of any exhilarating gas, sufficient to cause a great ner- vous excitement, would so paralyze the system as to render it in- sensible to pain, or nearly so—for it is well known that when an individual is very much excited by passion, he scarcely feels the severe wound which may at the time be inflicted, and the indi- vidual who is said to be 'dead drunk' may receive severe blows, apparently without the least pain, and when in this state is much more tenacious of life than when in the natural state. I accord- ingly resolved to try the experiment of inhaling an exhilarating gas myself, for the purpose of having a tooth extracted. I then obtained some nitrous oxyd gas, and requested Dr. J. M. Riggs to perform the operation at the moment when I should give the sig- nal, resolving to have the tooth extracted before loosing all con- sciousness. This experiment proved to be perfectly successful— it was attended with no pain whatever. I then performed the same operation on twelve or fifteen others, with the same re- sults. On this particular point, in a deposition given at the request of the representatives of Dr. Wells, Dr. Cooley says: State op Connecticut, ) County of Hartford. \ I, Samuel A. Cooley, a citizen of Hartford, county of Hartford, State of Connecticut, depose and say, that on the evening of the 10th day of December, in the year 1844, that one G. Q. Colton gave a public exhibition in the Union Hall in the said city of Hartford, to show the effect produced upon the human system by the inhaling of nitrous oxyd or laughing gas ; and, in accordance with the request of several gentlemen, the said Colton did give a