Today, the use of laughing gas is used intensively, especially in the fields of obstetrics and dentistry. The tense nerves of the person who takes the gas are relieved and their pain is relieved.
Humphry Davy (1778-1829) was the first to document the anesthetic effects of nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas. Davy was working at the Pneumatic Institute in Bristol, England, on this colorless and almost odorless gas. Davy, who is also known for inventing the miner's lamp, realized that the azure oxide gas made him laugh and also took the pain out of his aching tooth. In a book published in 1800, Davy mentioned that this gas could be used during surgeries. After Davy's investigations, nitrous oxide was used for entertainment purposes at parties and fairs, especially because of the laughing effect of gas. However, the use of laughing gas in surgeries took place 40 years later.
What to Know About Laughing Gas?
Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas or happy gas, is a colorless, non-flammable gas. This gas is used in medical and dental procedures as a sedative. It helps to relieve anxiety before the procedure and allow the patient to relax.
At a trade show in the United States, Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist, saw a man who had injured his leg while under the influence of nitrous oxide gas. Although the man's leg was injured, it did not hurt. Wells then had a tooth pulled out while breathing this gas. In January 1845, Wells gave a presentation on the use of nitrous oxide gas during tooth extraction at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, during the presentation, the patient was hurt a lot because the patient was not given enough gas during the presentation. As a result, Wells' reputation as a dentist was damaged, and Wells, who could not handle it, committed suicide three years later. The next year, another dentist, William Morton, gave a patient laughing gas while he was getting a tumor in his neck. After the surgery was successful, the use of nitrous oxide gas in surgeries became widespread, especially in London and Paris.
Today, the use of laughing gas is used intensively, especially in the fields of obstetrics and dentistry. The tense nerves of the person who takes the gas are relieved and their pain is relieved. Laughing gas, used as an anesthetic, replaced chloroform, which is known to be poisonous, and ether gas, which can also be used as an explosive.
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, PRS, MRIA, FGS (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor from Cornwall who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium, and boron the following year, as well as for discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. Davy is also credited to have been the first to discover clathrate hydrates in his lab.
Who is Humphry Davy?
Humphry Davy was born on December 17, 1778 in Penzance, Cornwall. He separated the compounds with electrical energy and obtained the elements in pure form. He found the laughing effect of nitrous oxide in 1799, with his work at the hospital in Bristol, where patients with liver were treated. He studied the physiological effects of various gases through his own experiments.
He came to London from Bristol in 1803 and entered the Royal Society. in order in 1807; He passed an electric current through the molten ash, and in this way he succeeded in separating first the element he called potassium, and then the element sodium from soda.
The following year he discovered barium, strontium, and calcium. He determined that the acid property was due to the presence of hydrogen, and concluded that acids and anhydrides were different. He also found electric arc by making measurements on electrolysis products. He worked with Faraday on the liquefaction of gases.
He entered the French Academy of Sciences in 1813. He carried out many chemical decompositions at the royal institute with the aid of a specially developed battery of two thousand elements, which was established by donations.
In 1817, oxidation reactions (hydrogen, alcohol) discovered the catalytic properties of platinum. He made the wire cage safety lamp used against firedamp explosions in mines.
Humphry Davy died in Geneva on 29 May 1829. He has a work titled "Consumption of Travel or the Last Days of a Philosopher".