Laughing Gas in Labor.
Dr. Chapa’s Clinical Pearls.
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The History of Nitrous Oxide
In 1844 in Hartford, Connecticut, a local dentist named Horace Wells attended one of these nitrous oxide parties. He was fascinated when he saw one of the participants stumble around and actually hurt his leg because he was under laughing gas. Dr. Wells wanted to test this possibility so he later asked to be given nitrous oxide while another local dentist extracted one of Wells' own molars. The patient screaming during the procedure had not taken full effect and or the mask had slipped. This public humiliation eventually led Dr. Wells to lose his reputation as a dentist and finally to his suicide three years later. Bragic, ironically 150 years after his premature death, his discovery would be adopted by dental
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