Davy's Nitrous Oxide Experiments

Chemist Sir Humphry Davy is known for his work with nitrous oxide, or laughing gas. That early part of his career is the focus of part one of this two-parter.

Research:

• "Britons take laughing gas merrily. Tories take it more seriously." The Economist, 27 Sept. 2023, p. NA. Gale OneFile: Business, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A766770794/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=c0888abb. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.
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• “Sir Humphrey Davy’s Harmful Emissions – November 2015.” Newcastle University Special Collections. 11/30/2015. https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/speccoll/2015/11/30/sir-humphrey-davys-harmful-emissions/
• Adams, Max. "Humphry Davy and the murder lamp: Max Adams investigates the truth behind the introduction of a key invention of the early Industrial Revolution." History Today, vol. 55, no. 8, Aug. 2005, pp. 4+. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A135180355/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=2d163818. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.
• Buslov, Alexander BSc; Carroll, Matthew BSc; Desai, Manisha S. MD. Frozen in Time: A History of the Synthesis of Nitrous Oxide and How the Process Remained Unchanged for Over 2 Centuries. Anesthesia & Analgesia 127(1):p 65-70, July 2018. | DOI: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000003423
• Cantor, Geoffrey. “Humphry Davy: a study in narcissism?” The Royal Society. 4/11/2018. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2017.0055#FN95R
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• Davy, Humprhy. “Researches, chemical and philosophical : chiefly concerning nitrous oxide, or diphlogisticated nitrous air, and its respiration.” London : printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church-Yard, by Biggs and Cottle, Bristol. 1800.
• Eveleth, Rose. “Here’s What It Was Like to Discover Laughing Gas.” Smithsonian. 3/27/2014. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/heres-what-it-was-discover-laughing-gas-180950289/
• Gibbs, Frederick William. "Sir Humphry Davy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 26 Feb. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Humphry-Davy-Baronet. Accessed 3 April 2024.
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• Hunt, Lynn and Margaret Jacob. “The Affective Revolution in 1790s Britain.” Eighteenth-Century Studies , Summer, 2001, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Summer, 2001). https://www.jstor.org/stable/30054227 j
• Jacob, Margaret C. and Michael J. Sauter. “Why Did Humphry Davy and Associates Not Pursue the Pain-Alleviating Effects of Nitrous Oxide?” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences , APRIL 2002, Vol. 57, No. 2. Via https://www.jstor.org/stable/24623678
• James, Frank A. J. L. "Davy, Humphry." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 20, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008, pp. 249-252. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2830905611/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=c68d87c2. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.
• James, Louis. “’Now Inhale the Gas’: Interactive Readership in Two Victorian Boys' Periodicals, 1855–1870.” Victorian Periodicals Review, Volume 42, Number 1, Spring 2009. https://doi.org/10.1353/vpr.0.0062
• Jay, Mike. “‘O, Excellent Air Bag’: Humphry Davy and Nitrous Oxide.” 8/6/2014. Public Domain Review. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/o-excellent-air-bag-humphry-davy-and-nitrous-oxide/
• Jay, Mike. “The Atmosphere of Heaven: The 1799 Nitrous Oxide Researches Reconsidered.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London , 20 September 2009, Vol. 63, No. 3, Thomas Beddoes, 1760-1808 (20 September 2009). https://www.jstor.org/stable/40647280
• Knight, David. "Davy, Sir Humphry, baronet (1778–1829), chemist and inventor." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. February 10, 2022. Oxford University Press. Date of access 3 Apr. 2024, https://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2261/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-7314
• Lacey, Andrew. “Humphry Davy and the ‘safety lamp controversy’.” 7/22/2015. https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2015/jul/22/humphry-davy-lamp-controversy-history-science
• Neve, Michael. "Beddoes, Thomas (1760–1808), chemist and physician." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. October 03, 2013. Oxford University Press. Date of access 11 Apr. 2024, https://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2261/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-1919
• Polwhele, Richard. “Poems; Chiefly, The Local Attachment; The Unsex'd Females; The Old English Gentleman; the Pneumatic Revellers; and The Family Picture, Etc: Volume 5.” 1810.
• Roberts, Jacob. “High Times: When does self-experimentation cross the line?” Science History Institute Museum and Library. 2/2/2017. https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/high-times/
• Slosson, Edwin E. “A New Path to Oblivion.” The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Sep., 1923). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3693060
• Thomas, John Meurig. “Sir Humphry Davy and the coal miners of the world: a commentary on Davy (1816) ‘An account of an invention for giving light in explosive mixtures of fire-damp in coal mines’.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 4/13/2015. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.0288
• Thomas, John Meurig. “Sir Humphry Davy: Natural Philosopher, Discoverer, Inventor, Poet, and Man of Action.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , JUNE 2013, Vol. 157, No. 2. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24640238
• West, John B. “Humphry Davy, nitrous oxide, the Pneumatic Institution, and the Royal Institution.” American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology. Volume 307, Issue 9. Nov 2014. https://journals.physiology.org/doi/epdf/10.1152/ajplung.00206.2014
• Woods, Gordon. "Sir Humphry Davy." Chemistry Review, vol. 14, no. 4, Apr. 2005, pp. 31+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A131857918/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=4d341a27. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.

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