America's First Patented Series of Bubble-Through Anesthetic Vaporizers

摘要

IN 1844, a traveling showman administered laughing gas for a dental extraction on a volunteer named Horace Wells (Dentist-Anesthetist, Hartford, Connecticut; 1815-1848). Twenty years later, the frequency of recreational demonstrations of nitrous oxide surged, courtesy of that same showman, Gardner Q. Colton 0tinerant Showman, later Dental Anesthetist, mostly in New England and New York; 1814-1898). During Reconstruction, Colton shifted the bulk of his nitrous oxide practice from entertaining into supplying swift anesthetics for dental extractions. Many dentists followed his lead and began using laughing gas professionally. Whether the gas was freshly generated on-site, emptied from a large bag, or delivered by gasometer, most nitrous oxide administrations were mercifully brief dances with hypoxia for American patients in the late 1800s. However, reports began surfacing about patients left dead or brain-damaged after receiving anesthetics in which 100% nitrous oxide was administered. Initial diagnoses of "crazed by laughing gas" often preceded final ones of "insanity" or "apoplexy" for victims of hypoxic anesthet-' ics.~1 Nevertheless, as professionals and laymen learned of morbidity and mortality associated with ether and especially chloroform anesthetics, many nitrous oxide administrators felt justified in persevering with their near-asphyxial use of laughing gas for anesthesia