Sarah Serkosky

December 21, 2015

Period 3

Introduction
In the 1800s, medical procedures were extremely painful, even in the now
relatively painless field of dentistry; most people had to be held down so they wouldnt
move as they painfully got a tooth pulled. Today, laughing gas is just a luxury that we
take for granted whenever an operation or surgery of some sort has to be performed on
us. It is an easy way for something extremely painful, like a surgery, to become almost
pain-free, just by taking in this anesthetic. However, laughing gas didnt just appear out
of thin air; someone had to discover it, and the person to do so was Horace Wells.
Horace Wellss profession was in dentistry, being the local dentist for the people in
Hartford, Connecticut. In the 1800s, going to the dentist was often an extremely painful
experience, as many people had to undergo operations without anything to lessen the
pain. Often Wells had to perform excruciating operations on his patients, from pulling
teeth to more major surgeries. This encouraged Wells to further investigate the use of
anesthetics, particularly laughing gas, in the field of dentistry. After a few people helping
to lead to Wellss discoveries, Wells finally had discovered the perfect anesthetic,
despite many obstacles in his way and the Anesthesia Controversy taking place. In the
1800s, Horace Wells changed the medical world forever by successfully
discovering and using laughing gas as an anesthetic, opening up doors for other
pain free possibilities in surgeries and operations that are used today.

Anesthesia and Horace Wells: In General

Anesthetics
There is more than one anesthetic used in the world today, but laughing gas is
probably the most common. Overall, anesthesia is used to relax you, block pain, make
you sleepy, or make you unconscious during an operation or surgery; many people
choose to be given anesthesia in an operation for these reasons. Laughing gas is used

in hospitals often, but there are many other anesthetics as well that fall under the
categories of local, regional, and general anesthesia. Local anesthesia block the nerves
in a specific area of the body, numbing that area enough for a small procedure to be
done without pain. Regional anesthesia numbs a larger area of the body and is used for
more major surgeries, mostly used on the lower half of the body. Lastly, general
anesthesia is used to make patients go completely unconscious and to make them
forget anything about the surgery. Out of these, laughing gas is a local anesthetic,
primarily used in dentistry; the very reason Horace Wells was interested in it in the first
place. It was a good choice, as it only numbs one section of the body and doesnt have
a high risk for the patients. Of course, the risks and side effects, such as
hyperhomocysteinemia or neurologic problems, were completely unknown to Wells at
the time; however, by even just discovering the laughing gas at all, he paved a pathway
for new discoveries further on in the future. In brief, without Horace Wells, we may not
have had all of these anesthetics today.

Horace Wells
Horace Wells was a pretty typical person, a dentist who lived in Hartford in the
1800s. He was born in Hartford, Vermont, but eventually moved to Connecticut to begin
medical practices in the field of dentistry. Although much of his work was in Hartford
Connecticut, he occasionally demonstrated his later practices in Boston,
Massachusetts. Wells eventually moved to New York to find a home for his family before
they moved there with him. Wells married Elizabeth Wales in 1838, invented devices,
and wrote about his practices often. William Morton, who later on became Wellss
opponent, was originally Wellss student and then his partner in dentistry. The
partnership did not last long, however, when Wells first began to experiment with nitrous
oxide and Morton with ether, another anesthetic. Wellss drive to successfully use
nitrous oxide as an anesthetic came from a few different directions: as a dentist, he saw
many, if not all, of his patients in extreme pain when he had to operate. He felt that, if he
could make the operations less painful for his patients, then he would. Of course, along
with the satisfaction of making his community a better place, there was the fame and
fortune to look forward too, as well as the title of the founder of anesthetics. However,

due to stress and depression, Wells eventually committed suicide after being arrested
for throwing acid on some women in a street in a drugged state. In summary, Horace
Wells started off as a typical person until his troubles with anesthesia and the
Anesthesia Controversy took its toll on him and his mental state. However, even though
Wellss life ended in a sad way, he was not left completely alone in his work for his
whole life; he did have some help along the way.

The Discovery: What Lead to it

There were a few key people in Horace Wellss life, as well as some other
events, that assisted him in discovering anesthesia. One of the people to have helped
him was a man named named Gardner Colton. Colton was a showman and had studied
medicine for a little while. Wells had originally found out about nitrous oxide from Colton
when he was 29 and had attended Coltons demonstration of the anesthetic (Gammell).
The person who had been administered the anesthetic to accidently injured his leg
during the demonstration, but, due to the nitrous oxides effects, felt nothing (Gammell).
Wells noticed this and decided to, with the help of Colton and John Riggs (who was
Wellss associate), pursue learning and practising with nitrous oxide. He did this by
having Riggs remove one of Wellss troublesome wisdom teeth while he was under the
influence of the laughing gas, which Colton had helped to administer. During the entire
experiment, Wells felt nothing, and began to think that nitrous oxide was the perfect
solution. The next step was to administer the gas to other people; his patients. Colton
taught Wells how to administer the gas, and, over a short period of time, Wells had
successfully-and painlessly-operated on at least a dozen of his patients (Gifford). While
Wells did a lot of the work that was put into helping his patients in this way, it is evident
that, without the help of these people, he would not have been able to succeed.
However, not everyone wanted to help Wells; he acquired a few opponents along the
way.

Obstacles and Opponents

Obstacles

It was not always easy for Horace Wells as he further and further investigated
nitrous oxide, as there were often obstacles he encountered. There was one major
setback that Wells had to work through, and that was his first demonstration of laughing
gas. Wells had eventually become so confident in his work that, in the January of 1845,
he decided to demonstrate laughing gas for the first time at the General Hospital in
Boston, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, the outcome was not as he expected. Something
went wrong while Wells administered the laughing gas, and when he began operating,
the patient moaned in pain. Wells was driven out of the hospital as people booed and
criticized him while the patient tried to convince them that he was not really in pain. This
failed demonstration lowered Wellss reputation and embarrassed him; he knew what
nitrous oxides true potential was and was upset that he had not proved its uses. At
another point in his life, Wells decided to move to New York City and then have the rest
of his family-his wife and son-move there with him. While he was there, though, he
began taking ether and chloroform for depression, which was caused by the stress of all
of the conflicts and difficulties he had involving his discovery of laughing gas. At one
point, Wells became so drugged that he, in his drugged state, got arrested for throwing
some acid on a few innocent women out on the street. This ended his career as a
dentist for the time, putting an end to any new discoveries about anesthetics that he
might have made. Wells could have overcome this obstacle, but instead, once he was
brought to The Tombs Prison, he overdosed in chloroform and cut a major artery in his
thigh with a razor. Not long after, he bled to death, dying of blood loss in 1848. All of
these obstacles eventually led to his death, and though these events may not seem
enough to push Wells into depression, some of his opponents and the obstacles he
encountered with them were enough.

Opponents
Not everyone appreciated and supported Horace Wells in his discoveries of
anesthesia, but there were a few men in particular who could very well be titled as his
opponents. The first, and possibly most significant, was William Thomas Green Morton,
Wellss former student and partner. Once the partnership had broken up, Wells and
Morton went their own ways, Wells investigating the uses of nitrous oxide, and Morton
investigating the use of ether, another anesthetic. After a while of experimenting with

ethers uses successfully, knowing that Wells was also working with an anesthetic,,
Mortons success became somewhat well known. Morton was not completely honest,
however, in his work. Instead of calling the anesthetic ether-as it was-he decided to call
it letheon, and wanted a patent for his new substance (Gifford). Mortons lies
eventually were found out, but he still was convinced that he was the true founder of
anesthesia. Not only was Morton one of Wellss opponents, but there were two other
men who had also claimed to be the rightful founders of anesthesia. These men were
Professor Charles Jackson and Crawford W. Long. Between these four men (Wells,
Morton, Jackson, and Long), there were many conflicts, known as the Anesthesia
Controversy. Each man had a claim of his own involving anesthetics that Horace Wells
had to prove wrong or somehow counter with discoveries of his own, and that made
Wellss life all the more difficult. In a few words, Wells had quite a few opponents in his
lifetime. However, the controversy between Wells, Morton, Jackson, and Long was
more specifically known as the Anesthesia Controversy, which these opponents were all
involved in somehow.

The Anesthesia Controversy

There were mainly three men involved in the Anesthesia Controversy who were
opposing Horace Wells, men who all had practised with anesthesia in one way or
another. Each man believed that themselves only had founded anesthesia and
deserved the title, fame and fortune. These three other men were William T. G. Morton,
Professor Charles T. Jackson, and Crawford W. Long.

William T. G. Morton
William Thomas Green Morton was born on August 9th, 1819, in Charlton,
Massachusetts. Morton originally worked with nitrous oxide, but when his professor at
the time, Charles Jackson, suggested he practise with ether instead, he switched.
Morton originally tested his ether on his sons goldfish and on a spaniel before using it
on other humans (Wexner). Once he was confident that the ether worked properly, he
added aromatic oils to the ether and called it letheon, saying it was a substance that
he had invented. Eventually the truth was found out and Mortons lies were exposed,

but that did not stop him from constantly legally battling Wells, Jackson, and Long for
the credit he believed he deserved as the founder of anesthetics.

Professor Charles T. Jackson

Professor Charles Thomas Jackson was born on June 21st, 1805, in Plymouth,
Massachusetts. Jackson was an M.D. in Boston, and did not work with anesthetics as
much as Wells or Morton. He was originally Mortons professor, and when Morton began
to work with nitrous oxide, he pushed him towards ether. Jackson never made a big
deal of this until Wells and Morton stepped forward to battle each other; only then did
he fight for credit. Jackson was certain that, without him, Morton never would have been
successful with the ether, and said that he was behind Mortons success. He even filed
a lawsuit for Morton saying that he himself had discovered ether, not Morton. Even with
the little part he truly had with anesthetics, Jackson was the most difficult and
determined man of the three.

Crawford W. Long
Crawford Williamson Long was born on November 1st, 1815, in Danielsville,
Georgia. Long was an M.D. as well who also worked with ether in minor surgeries, as
he did not want his patients to be in pain. Long was very secretive about his work and
never shared much about it outside of his patients. Unlike Horace Wells and William
Morton, he never wrote about his work for newspapers or for the public; he only used
the ether to benefit his patients. That was until the controversies with Wells, Morton, and
Jackson started up; right away he began writing about his work once he saw that other
people were doing the same. Only then did he claim to be the true founder of
anesthesia.

The Controversy in General

In general, all of these men believed that they needed to prove themselves the
founders of anesthetics, whichever anesthetic that may have been. The controversy
was taken very seriously by each man-one of them was so determined that he even
filed a lawsuit for his opponent! Overall, all of these men were Horace Wellss
opponents, and it was a constant struggle to beat the others and prove them wrong,
even if Wells never truly did. It is clear that the title, fame and fortune were truly
important to these four men, and that is why the Anesthesia Controversy began.

In Conclusion
Horace Wells changed the lives of people in the northeast in a few ways. Before
him, dentistry was extremely painful for the patients. While we have painkillers and
anesthetics today, The people in the 1800s had nothing, at least until Horace Wells
learned and practised with nitrous oxide on his patients, relieving their pain. Even
outside our local community, the uses of nitrous oxide and other anesthetics have
spread so that we have a wide variety of them today. One of Wellss intentions when he
began using nitrous oxide was to help his patients, his community, and even the entire
northeast, and he did so successfully, changing lives along the way.
Horace Wells is historically significant. He was the first man to discover and
successfully practice with nitrous oxide, an anesthetic. Wells was the first to
successfully bring pain free dentistry to Hartford, Connecticut, and beyond, all with the
use of laughing gas. Horace Wells is also significant because he was a major part of the
Anesthesia Controversy, but most importantly, Horace Wells made it possible for other
people further on in the future to experiment with and use nitrous oxide in dentistry and
in other practices. Without Horace Wells, doctors today may not have found all these
new anesthetics that are successfully used every day-still including laughing gas.
Without Wells, people today may still be in pain every time they go to get a tooth pulled,
or when they go to a surgery. With his work, Horace Wells made a significant
contribution to society, then and now.
Horace Wells changed the medical world forever with his discovery of
laughing gas as an anesthetic. He was willing to learn more and use anesthetics to help
the people that needed it, and, with the help of a few men, worked hard to use nitrous
oxide properly. Though he had many obstacles and opponents that were constantly
there to hinder him, including the stress of the Anesthesia Controversy, he stayed
resilient and worked through it until his job was done. In the 1800s, Horace Wells
changed the medical world forever by successfully discovering and using laughing gas
as an anesthetic, opening up doors for other pain free possibilities in surgeries and
operations that are used today.