SIR LAUGHING GAS

DOI: 10.4324/9781003239284-5

The day after Christmas in 1799, Sir Humphry Davy stripped off his shirt, stuck a thermometer under his armpit, and stepped into an airtight box. His goal? To find out how long he could breathe nitrous oxide (laughing gas) without passing out. Sounds like a laugh, doesn’t it?

This young English scientist had been experimenting with nitrous oxide for several months. He set up a chemical reaction by heating nitrate of ammoniac and catching the escaping gas in a bellow (a thick cloth bag). Then he breathed in the gas to see what effect it would have on him. Lucky for Davy, the gas was not lethal. Instead of dying, he felt giddy and happy. He wrote in his reports that the gas made him feel like laughing and dancing.

When he told some of his fellow scientists about the gas, they quickly agreed to help Davy with his experiments. Davy invited friends to come to his laboratory in the evening and breathe from his bag of gas. Their job was to write down their observations on how the gas made them feel. They all felt very happy and the vapor was nicknamed “laughing gas.”

Lucky for Davy, the gas was not lethal. Instead of dying, he felt giddy and happy. He wrote in his reports that the gas made him feel like laughing and dancing.

Soon word leaked out about Davy and his laughing gas. People invited him to parties where he brought his bag of gas and guests took turns inhaling the fumes. None of the people seemed to suffer any long-term consequences, but several of them did breathe in so much that they lost consciousness.

Davy believed his discovery of laughing gas needed deeper scientific research. He hoped that he might be able to find a way to use laughing gas as a chemical anesthetic for surgery. It seemed like it would be a good alternative to the current method of a shot of whiskey and straps to hold the patient down.

When he stepped inside the sealed box that day after Christmas, he was going to see just how much laughing gas his body could withstand. His lab assistant pumped in four quarts of nitrous oxide. It was more than any living person had ever breathed. Just before he lost consciousness, Davy reported feeling that the world was brighter, his hearing was better, and he saw “shining packets of light and energy.”

He woke up when his assistant dragged him out of the box and removed the nitrous oxide tube from his mouth. Breathing fresh air he fully recovered, and that week he began writing a 580-page report to the Royal Society. The Society was impressed with his report on the new gas, but it didn’t become popular with doctors until the 1860s because it was difficult to process and store the gas. It did, however, become popular with the public, and many people had laughing gas parties where the whole group would breathe in the gas and watch each other’s antics. Because it was a gas, people didn’t think it was as wicked as getting drunk on alcohol. The laughing gas fad eventually faded away, and nitrous oxide became a tool of the medical profession.

Experimenting on himself with nitrous oxide was just the first of many discoveries Humphry Davy made for science. Davy became fascinated with electricity and began experimenting with chemicals and the effect of electric charges. He discovered the elements sodium, calcium, and potassium. He continued to test chemicals on himself throughout his career, and eventually his health suffered from his experiments. He damaged his eyesight in experiments with nitrogen trichloride (an explosive chemical compound) and hired a lab assistant named Michael Faraday to help him. Faraday built on Davy’s experiments and helped discover principles that led to the development of generators, electric motors, and refrigeration.

When he stepped inside the sealed box that day after Christmas, he was going to see just how much laughing gas his body could withstand.

BEN AND THE AIR BATH

Benjamin Franklin is known for the invention of bifocals, the Franklin Stove, the odometer, and the lightning rod. Fie did all this while helping to found the United States of America. Flow did Franklin get so much energy and great ideas? Franklin attributed it to his healthy habits of swimming for exercise and taking a daily air bath.

Every morning, Franklin would get up and strip out of his nightclothes, down to nothing at all. Then, he would throw the windows open and take an "air bath" for about an hour. He believed that fresh air on the skin was healthy. He often spent time in his room writing letters or reading in his birthday suit. Franklin did not usually receive visitors during his air bath time.