Dr. Horace Wells
(
January 21,
1815 –
January 24,
1848) was an American
dentist who pioneered the use of
anaesthesia in dentistry, specifically
nitrous oxide (or
laughing gas).
Life
Born in
Hartford, Vermont, Wells was educated in
Walpole, New Hampshire before studying dentistry in Boston. After obtaining a degree, Wells set up a practice in
Hartford,
Connecticut, with an associate named
William T. G. Morton, who would become famous for his use of
ether as an anesthesia on October 18, 1846.
Wells first bore witness to the effects of laughing gas in 1844 when he volunteered to have it demonstrated on him by
Gardner Quincy Colton, a member of a traveling
circus. Wells felt nothing, and was the first patient to be operated on under anesthesia, having his tooth extracted later that year by his associate,
John Riggs. He then began utilising it on his own patients. He did not attempt to patent the discovery because he stated that pain relief should be 'as free as the air'.
He gave a demonstration to medical students at the
Massachusetts General Hospital in
Boston in 1845. However, the gas was improperly administered and the patient cried out in
pain. The audience of students jeered at Wells and left the theatre chanting "Humbug! Humbug!" Because of this embarrassment, Wells was discredited in the medical community. Later, however, Wells successfully had one of his own teeth removed while using inhalant anesthesia, proving its uses.
After this disgrace, Wells gave up dentistry and became a travelling
salesman for the next two years, wandering Connecticut and selling canaries,
shower baths and other household items. In 1847, he left for
Paris after being given a demonstration on anesthesia by his prosperous former partner William Morton.
Sometime after returning to the United States, Wells became addicted to
chloroform. At that time the effects of sniffing chloroform and ether were not known. In January 1848, Wells self-experimented with chloroform for a week. He became increasingly deranged. One day, delirious, Wells rushed out into the street and threw
sulfuric acid over the clothing of two
prostitutes. He was committed to New York's infamous
Tombs Prison. As the influence of the drug waned, Wells' mind started to clear. In despair, he realised the horror of what he had done. Wells then committed
suicide, slitting an artery in his leg with a razor after inhaling an analgesic dose of chloroform to blot out the pain.
Wells is buried at
Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford, Connecticut.
Recognition
The
American Dental Association honored Wells, posthumously in 1864, as the discoverer of modern anesthesia, and the
American Medical Association recognized his achievement in 1870.
A monument to Horace Wells was raised in the
Place des États-Unis,
Paris.
Hartford, Connecticut has a statute of Horace Wells in
Bushnell Park.
See also
