The Anesthesia Man

Horace Wells wanted to make dental operations as painless as possible.  In retrospect, he likely should have stopped there.

Born in 1815, Wells attended schools in Hampshire and Massachusetts before choosing a career in dentistry. With no formal dental schools available, Wells gained his training through apprenticeships with various practicing dentists in Boston. After a brief stint as a traveling dentist, he established a permanent practice in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1836.

By 1838, Wells was a renowned dentist in the community, even gaining recognition among his peers with his work, "An Essay on Teeth, Comprising a Brief Description of Their Formation, Disease, and Proper Treatment." Despite the success of his practice, Wells was often disturbed by the pain his patients had to endure. Early nineteenth-century dentistry was typically excruciating, as there were no reliable methods of anesthesia. Due to the associated medical risks, substances like opium (and later, morphine) couldn't be safely used for tooth extractions, and alcohol had its own set of drawbacks. In search of an alternative, Wells discovered a potential solution during a peculiar lecture.

When Joseph Priestley discovered nitrous oxide in 1772, its properties were not immediately apparent. Priestley initially named the colorless, non-flammable gas "nitrous air" due to its sweet odor and taste. Later, chemist Humphrey Davy discovered this new gas's anesthetic properties when he removed his wisdom tooth and found that nitrous oxide alleviated the pain. Though Davy recognized the potential of nitrous oxide for surgery in a 1799 book, the idea didn't gain traction at first. However, the euphoria induced by inhaling nitrous oxide earned it the nickname "laughing gas."

For several decades, nitrous oxide was consumed recreationally, and "laughing gas" parties became a trend, initially among British aristocrats and eventually crossing the Atlantic. An 1839 flier for a typical party read, "The gas will be administered only to gentlemen of the first respectability. The object is to make the entertainment a genteel affair." One can only imagine how "genteel" guests became after excessive nitrous oxide consumption. More scholarly lecturers even supplied nitrous oxide canisters in lecture halls so the audience could sample its effects firsthand.

Horace Wells first experienced the effects of laughing gas at an 1844 lecture by Professor G. Q. Colton. Seeing an audience member injure himself yet feel no pain under its influence, Wells saw potential for its use in tooth extractions. He arranged a demonstration with Colton the following day, during which Wells had a tooth extracted under nitrous oxide anesthesia. He was so thrilled with the painless procedure that he later remarked, "I did not feel it so much as the prick of a pin. A new era in tooth pulling It is the greatest discovery ever made"

Unfortunately, a subsequent demonstration for Boston dentists and medical students failed when Wells accidentally turned off the nitrous oxide too early. The patient sat up and screamed, leading the audience to declare Wells' discovery a hoax and leave the venue. Despite this setback, Wells persisted in his experiments and successfully used nitrous oxide on his own patients.

Meanwhile, developments were unfolding in Europe. The analgesic properties of chloroform and ether had been known for some time, but it wasn't until the 1840s that these substances started being used for surgical procedures. When Wells' former partner, William T.G. Morton, first used ether for a tooth extraction at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846, he received widespread acclaim from Boston newspapers for his discovery. Painless surgery suddenly became a hot topic, and a race followed to determine who deserved credit for inventing anesthesia (a term coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes that same year).

Horace Wells sought recognition for his work but met stiff resistance from the Boston medical community, which favored Morton, a local. The dispute was as much about prestige as money, as Morton attempted to patent his anesthetic method, which would have made him rich.

Determined to have his early nitrous oxide experiments acknowledged, Wells made his mark in medical history by presenting his claim to the French Academy of Medicine. Although Wells' pioneering work was eventually recognized, his life took a sharp downturn after his triumphant return from France in 1847.

As chloroform emerged as a safer alternative to ether, Wells started experimenting with it, self-administering the drug in large doses. The harmful effects of chloroform exposure were not well understood at the time, and Wells became increasingly unstable. According to his obituary, Wells, along with a patient, attacked a woman with a spray bottle of acid. Following the incident, Wells continued to inhale large doses of chloroform over several nights.

In a confession he left behind, Wells wrote:

"I lost all consciousness before I removed the inhaler from my mouth. How long it remained there, I do not know, but upon regaining consciousness, I was exhilarated beyond anything I had ever before experienced. Seeing the bottle of acid, I seized it, rushed into the street, and hurled it at two females. I might have done the same to others, but I remember no more than this. The excitement did not leave me for some time after my arrest."

Wells made no attempt at defense and was primarily concerned about the welfare of his wife and child. Imprisoned in New York's notorious Tombs jail, Wells smuggled in a razor and some chloroform (nobody figured out how). He then poured a dose of chloroform into a handkerchief before cutting the femoral artery in his left thigh. Guards found Wells dead in his cell on January 24, surrounded by a pool of blood and several sheets of paper, on which he had written his confession and a final note to his wife.

In the note, Wells wrote, "I am fast becoming a deranged man, or I would desist from this act. I can't live and keep my reason, and on this account, God will forgive my deed. I can say no more." He also gave instructions for his burial and the disposal of his personal effects.

Despite his request for a secret burial in his final letter, Wells was interred at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford, Connecticut. Sadly, William Morton and the Boston medical community tried to exploit the bizarre circumstances of Wells' death to bolster Morton's claim as the inventor of anesthesia. It took many years and considerable lobbying by Wells' supporters before the American Dental Association and the American Medical Association formally recognized Horace Wells as a pioneer. Monuments to Wells have since been erected in Paris and Hartford, Connecticut. Nitrous oxide continues to be used as an anesthetic, and, ironically, in Wells' case, it has been successfully employed in treating certain types of addiction, including alcohol withdrawal.

And yes, laughing gas parties are still a thing.