Wells, Horace

SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology

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b. 1815 Connecticut, USA

d. 1848 Hartford, Connecticut, USA

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American dentist, pioneer of dental extraction under nitrous oxide gas (laughing gas) anaesthesia.

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Practising in Hartford, Connecticut, he was in partnership with W.T.G. Morton during 1842–3. Following experiences at a party in December 1844, where laughing gas (nitrous oxide) was used, Wells experimented with it as an anaesthetic during dental extractions, using himself as the first subject. By January 1845 he had employed the technique successfully in fifteen cases and made arrangements for its use as a general anaesthetic for a major operation at Massachusetts General Hospital. The experiment was a failure and he became discouraged from further enterprise in the field. He was eventually confined in an asylum, and very shortly after committed suicide.

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Bibliography

1838, An Essay on Teeth.

1847, A History of the Discovery of the Application of Nitrous Oxide Gas, Ether and Other Vapours to Surgical Operations, Hartford.

Further Reading

B.M.Duncum, 1947, Development of Inhalational Anaesthesia.

MG