Discoverers of Anaesthesia—1 HORACE WELLS (1815–1848)

Wells was the first of the New England group to conceive the idea of producing insensibility to pain through the administration of a chemical gas. He made the deduction on 10 December 1844, while observing an exhibition of the strange effects of nitrous oxide gas conducted by Gardner Quincy Colton in Hartford, during which a volunteer, who had taken the gas, severely injured himself but felt no pain. Reasoning by analogy, Wells, within fifteen hours, made the confirming experiment, with himself as subject, having nearby dentist John Riggs extract his bothersome wisdom tooth, without sensing any pain, and ushering in a new era of painless dentistry. Wells afterwards conducted about twenty tooth extractions under nitrous oxide gas, and experimented with ether as well. But following an unsuccessful attempt to demonstrate the efficacy of nitrous oxide gas for tooth extraction in Boston in late 1845, he became depressed and abandoned dentistry for a period of about two years, returning to it shortly before his death.