Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century

The discovery which is indicated by the somewhat unfamiliar word[16] which heads this article is perhaps the greatest which has ever been made in connection with the science of medicine. At least, there is no other discovery of modern times which has so largely and directly contributed to the assuagement of human suffering. Nay, in this respect there is perhaps in the whole annals of the healing art no other which can rival it, if we except that famous one of Jenner’s which has arrested the ravages of small-pox. During the last thirty years, all the more formidable operations of the surgeon have been, in almost every case, performed with a happy unconsciousness on the part of the patient. In unconsciousness, induced by the same means, has relief also been found for severe suffering arising from other causes. The substances which are denoted by the word “anæsthetics” differ from the drugs which the older surgeons sometimes administered before an operation, in order to lull the patient’s sense of pain. They differ in their nature and in the mode of their administration; by the certainty and completeness of their action; by the entirely transient effects they produce, which pass off without leaving a trace. 16. From α (αν), privative, and αισθητικος, capable of perceiving or feeling. To the great chemist whose name has already been mentioned as the 732discoverer of the metals of the alkalies and alkaline earths we are indebted for the first of the remarkable class of bodies we are about to discuss. The first work that Davy published had for its title “Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration.” This was in the year 1800, when the philosopher had hardly completed his twenty-first year. The work caused no little sensation in the scientific world, and it was in consequence of the reputation he acquired by these researches that Davy was appointed to the chemical professorship at the Royal Institution. Davy was not the original discoverer of nitrous oxide, but he first entered upon a full investigation of its properties, and announced the singular effect produced by its inhalation. The kind of transient intoxication and propensity to laughter which it excites have obtained for this compound the familiar name of laughing gas. Davy had by experiment on his own person proved the anæsthetic properties of this gas, for he had a tooth painlessly extracted when under its influence, and he says in the work above named that “as nitrous acid gas seems capable of destroying pain, it could probably be used with advantage in surgical operations where there is no effusion of blood.” Davy’s observations and suggestions were destined to lie barren for nearly half a century, but they nevertheless formed the basis of the great results which have since been attained. Before proceeding farther, it will perhaps be well to make the unscientific reader acquainted with the chemistry of nitrous oxide. We may presume that he knows that atmospheric air is a mixture of the two invisible gases, nitrogen and oxygen (the small quantity of carbonic acid also present need not now be considered). When a known quantity of air is passed over red-hot copper turnings, contained in a tube, the whole of the oxygen is seized upon by the copper, and only the nitrogen issues from the tube, and may be collected. Some of the copper is thus converted into oxide, and the increase of the weight of the tube’s contents shows the weight of oxygen contained in the air, while the weight of nitrogen may be known from the volume collected. In this way the chemist analyses atmospheric air, and determines that 100 parts by weight of dry air contain about 79 of nitrogen and 21 of oxygen; or, by measure, about four times as much of the former as of the latter. Now, chemists are acquainted with no fewer than five different substances which contain nothing but nitrogen and oxygen. These substances are either gases, or can be changed into the gaseous form by heat, and they can all be analysed in the same manner as air. The results of such analyses show in 100 parts by weight of each substance the following proportions of its constituents: No. 1. No. 2. No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. Nitrogen 63·64 46·67 36·84 30·44 25·93 Oxygen 36·36 53·33 63·16 69·56 74·07 In casting the eye over this table, no relation will probably be detected between the five cases. But if we write down, not the quantities of nitrogen and oxygen contained in 100 parts of each compound, but the quantity of oxygen which in each compound is united to some fixed quantity of nitrogen, we shall at once detect a remarkable law: thus, taking 28 as the fixed weight of nitrogen, for reasons which need not be here explained: 733 No. 1. No. 2. No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. Nitrogen 28 28 28 28 28 {Oxygen 16 32 48 64 80 {    or 16 × 1 16 × 2 16 × 3 16 × 4 16 × 5 Chemists have a sort of shorthand method of expressing the composition of substances, which may be conveniently illustrated by the case before us. Let it be agreed that the letter N shall not only represent nitrogen, but always fourteen parts by weight—grains, ounces, &c., &c.,—of nitrogen; and that, similarly, O shall stand for sixteen parts by weight of oxygen. It is plain that the composition of the compound No. 2 may be represented by simply writing down “NO;” and that of No. 4, in which there is just double the proportion of oxygen, by “NOO.” But to avoid an unnecessary repetition of the same symbol, when it has to be taken more than once, a small figure is written after and a little below it. Thus, for OO, “O2” is written. The proportional composition of each of the five compounds will now be obvious from the following symbols: No. 1. No. 2. No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. N2O NO N2O3 NO2 N2O5 These symbols may be regarded as merely a compendious expression of the composition of each substance—as a shorthand statement of the facts of analysis. But to the majority of chemists the symbols have a deeper significance; for they are taken as representing the atoms of each element which enter into each smallest possible particle of a compound; they express a certain theory of the ultimate constitution of matter. Thus, if we suppose that there exist indivisible particles of nitrogen and of oxygen, and that each smallest particle, or molecule, of the compounds under consideration is constituted of a certain definite and invariable number of each kind of atoms; and, further, if we suppose that an atom of oxygen is heavier than one of nitrogen in the proportion of 16 to 14, or 8 to 7, we shall have a simple theoretical explanation of the relations in the proportions already pointed out. In fact, these would result from the simplest combinations of the two kinds of atoms; and we can picture each one of the smallest particles of the several bodies as thus constituted: No. 1. No. 2. No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. ● ●○ ● ○ ● ●○ ○ ○ ●○ ○ ● ●○ ○ ○○ ○ N2O NO N2O3 NO2 N2O5 The black circles represent nitrogen atoms, and the open ones oxygen 734atoms; the symbols are placed below in order that their relation to the supposed atomic constitution may be obvious at a glance. While the symbol of a compound must always accord with its percentage composition, the latter does of itself determine the symbol or formula. A number of other circumstances, which cannot here be discussed, are taken into account as evidence of the constitution of the molecule. This digression on chemical formulæ will, it is hoped, enable the general reader, who may not previously have been acquainted with them, to perceive their significance, instead of passing them over as unintelligible cabalistic letters when they occur in the following pages. With this object, it may be added that the elements, hydrogen, carbon, and chlorine, are respectively represented by H, C, and Cl; and that the proportional quantities, which are also implied in the symbols, and are those by which H, C, and Cl combine with other bodies, are 1, 12, and 35·5 respectively. Another point which should be understood is that the properties and behaviour of a chemical compound are different, and usually extremely different, from those of any of its constituents. This is well illustrated in the subject we are considering. Atmospheric air is a mixture (not a compound) of nitrogen and oxygen gases, and all its properties are intermediate between those of its ingredients taken separately. Nitrous oxide, N2O, has properties not possessed by either constituent separately. For example, it is very soluble in water, whereas oxygen is very slightly so, and nitrogen still less. The other compounds we have referred to differ widely from nitrous oxide and from each other in their properties. Nitrous oxide is an invisible gas, having a slightly sweetish taste and smell. It is dissolved by water, which, at ordinary temperatures, takes up about three-fourths of its volume of the gas. By cold and great pressure the gas may be condensed into a colourless liquid. The gas is obtained in a pure state by gently heating the salt called ammonium nitrate, which is formed by neutralizing pure nitric acid with carbonate of ammonia. The action which occurs may be explained thus: the hydrogen of the ammonium unites with a portion of the oxygen of the nitric acid, forming water, whilst the remainder of the oxygen combines with the nitrogen. As chemical actions are regarded as either separations or unions of atoms, they can be expressed by what is called a chemical equation, the left-hand side of which shows the arrangement of the atoms before the action, and the right-hand side the arrangement after it, the sign of equality being read as “produce” or “produces.” But the validity of the equations, like that of the symbolic formulæ, is quite independent of the existence of atoms; for the equation always rests on certain facts, namely, the relations between the quantities of the substances which enter into, and those which are produced by, a chemical action. Thus, in the present case the action may be symbolically expressed as follows: H4N NO3 = 2H2O + N2O Ammonium nitrate. Water. Nitrous oxide. The equation expresses the fact that every 80 parts by weight of ammonium nitrate, which are used in this reaction, split up into 36 of water and 44 of nitrous oxide. No attempt seems to have been made to turn Davy’s suggestion to practical account; but in courses of chemical lectures at the hospitals and elsewhere the peculiar physiological properties of nitrous oxide have, since Davy’s announcement, always been demonstrated by some person inhaling 735the gas. In the medical schools the students often operated on a comrade who was under the influence of nitrous oxide to the extent of bestowing sundry pinches and cuffs, which fully proved the anæsthetic qualities of the nitrous oxide. In 1818 Faraday pointed out the similarity between the effects of ether and of nitrous oxide, and from that time Professor Turner regularly included among the experiments of his course of chemistry the inhalation of the vapour of ether by one of the students. This was done by simply pouring a little ether into a bladder of air, and by means of a tube drawing the mixed air and vapour into the mouth. Until 1844 the effects of nitrous oxide and of ether vapour remained without application, although thus continually demonstrated in lectures. At the close of that year, Mr. Horace Wells, a dentist, of Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A., witnessed the usual experiments with nitrous oxide at a public lecture. At his request the lecturer attended at Mr. Wells’s residence the following day, to administer to him the nitrous oxide, in order that he might try its efficacy in annulling pain, for he was himself to have a tooth extracted by a brother dentist. His exclamation on finding the operation painlessly over was, “A new era in tooth-pulling!” Mr. Wells continued his experiments on the use of nitrous oxide in dental operations, but he did not apparently obtain uniform results, for he pronounced its effects uncertain, and he gave it up. On the occasion when Mr. Wells’s tooth was extracted, Dr. W. T. G. Morton was present, and he soon afterwards found that under the influence of ether vapour, teeth might be painlessly extracted and surgical operations performed. Dr.