Nitrous oxide: From being laughing gas to an anaesthetic
We bet you have seen a lot of animation movies and films in which the dentist and patient both inhale some gas and then end up incessantly laughing. Ever wondered what they inhaled?
The answer is nitrous oxide. This gas is the most commonly used anesthetic during dental procedures. Nitrous oxide, also commonly called as laughing gas, is an oxide of nitrogen with the chemical formula N2O. Inhaling a small amount of it results in joy and bliss. It is also the most popular inhaled anesthetic worldwide because it provides immediate pain relief. In higher doses, it can have narcotic effects and cause suffocation. However, it wasn’t originally used for this. Do you know how this gas was discovered and put into use for such a wide range of fields? Let’s deep dive and find out more about our laughing gas.
Discovery of nitrous oxide
English chemist Joseph Priestly was the first person to synthesize nitrous oxide in 1772. He heated iron filings that had been dampened with nitric acid, and the result was nitrous oxide! Experimentation soon started on the gas, and researchers began investigating its properties.
Humphry Davy and the laughing gas
A British scientist, Humphry Davy, spent several years experimenting and working with nitrous oxide. He breathed pure nitrous oxide and mixtures of the gas with air or oxygen as part of experiments on himself and his pals. Davy became fascinated by the laughing effect of the gas and as a result coined the name ‘laughing gas’ in 1798. Nitrous Oxide also came to be called ‘happy gas’ due to its bliss-inducing effects. Finally, he published his research in 1800 in a book where he elaborated its analgesic effects and described its psychotropic activities including euphoria and relief of anxiety. In his research, Davy also suggested that N2O can be used as an anaesthetic in surgical procedures. However, no one used it for this purpose. Instead, for almost 50 years it gained popularity for its euphoria-producing effects, by making people laugh and act silly in carnivals.
Dr. Wells, nitrous oxide and dentistry
A local dentist named Dr. Horace Wells (1815-1848) attended a carnival on 10th December, 1844 in Hartford, Connecticut, hosted by a showman named Gardner Q. Colton (1814-1898). One of the volunteers, still under the effect of the gas, stumbled onto the nearby benches, breaking his leg. Wells observed that the man felt no discomfort and was oblivious of his injury. He instantly considered using the gas as a pain reliever.
Dr. Wells went to Colton and asked him to participate in an experiment. Colton concurred and gave Dr. Wells nitrous gas while a nearby dentist pulled one of Wells' molars. Dr. Wells experienced no discomfort during the treatment. He wanted to demonstrate the anaesthetic effects of the gas in 1845 at The Harvard Medical School in Boston. So, a patient was anesthetized with the gas before having a tooth pulled. But the gas had not yet fully taken effect, and the patient screamed in pain during the extraction. Wells was booed off the stage and the gas didn’t gain any momentum as an anaesthetic.
Nitrous oxide today in medicine
The work with N2O that finally made it a firm addition to medicine as an anaesthetic was done by Julius Zador in 1928. He and many more researchers after him explored progressively lower and safer concentrations of the gas for various medical purposes, often with side effects. Every study further cemented its role as an anaesthetic. The potent analgesic effects of nitrous oxide eventually made it helpful not just in dentistry but also in providing pain relief in places like the obstetrical ward and emergency room. Not just as an anaesthetic agent and a pain reliever, the happy gas is also used today for neuropsychiatric applications like substance abuse, alcoholism, and hangovers.