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September 1999
Volume 63 |
Number 9
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| Horace Wells,
D.D.S.: Rebel With a Cause (1815-1848) |
A.J. Wright, M.L.S.
Horace Wells, depressed and under the influence of chloroform
that he had apparently been breathing chronically for some weeks,
killed himself in New York City on January 23, 1848, two days
past his 33rd birthday. Of the three men most closely associated
with the "discovery" of inhalation anesthesia -- Wells, Crawford
W. Long, M.D., and William T.G. Morton -- surely Wells is the
most problematic.
Dr. Long made the discovery of inhalational anesthesia
in Georgia in March 1842, but failed to publish an account of
it until many years later. In fact, Dr. Long did not realize the
importance of what he had done until the news of Morton's work
flashed out of Boston and around the world. Morton made the discovery
in 1846, but only after both student and business relationships
with Wells and only after Charles Jackson suggested sulfuric ether
as a possible substitute for the nitrous oxide Wells had used.
Wells made the discovery in December 1844, submitted himself as
the first patient and then replicated that success on 15 of his
dental patients. However, his effort foundered in a January 1845
demonstration at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Although
he continued to use nitrous oxide successfully in his dental practice,
Wells' achievement and the remainder of his life were overshadowed
and haunted by that failure.
Years earlier in 1800, Sir Humphry Davy had speculated
that nitrous oxide inhalation could relieve some symptoms after
certain types of surgery. Neither Davy nor his mentor Thomas Beddoes
followed up on this idea. After all, Davy was not that interested
in medicine and Beddoes was not a surgeon. Had Davy and Beddoes
pursued the association of gas inhalation and surgery, perhaps
anesthesia would have been developed much earlier.
In the 1820s, Henry Hill Hickman achieved anesthesia in
dogs with carbon dioxide, but his efforts were ignored in both
England and France. Nitrous oxide production methods survived
in chemistry textbooks, and its use as a recreational inhalant
was widespread in U.S. college chemistry classes. Yet, not until
Wells' efforts began in December 1844 did inhalation anesthesia
in humans achieve a serious public forum.
Horace Wells "was one of the most well thought of and
competent dentists of his era. In fact, he was ahead of his time
in his thinking and in his scientific approach to the problems
of dentistry." His practice, which began in Hartford, Connecticut,
in 1836 "may have been one of the most successful and financially
rewarding practices in the country." When he was only 23, Wells
published An Essay on Teeth, an early American dental text
in which he condemned the pain-relieving nostrums and other dental
quackery of his day. In the early 1840s, Wells began a partnership
with his former pupil William Morton. In 1844, the pair even won
an award for a dental instrument case they designed and exhibited.
Yet their partnership was not a financial success, and they parted
ways after only two years in business together.
Recent work by Stephen D. Small, M.D., has demonstrated
that Wells was a deeply religious young man concerned "with a
reality that transcended intoxication, a dangerous idea without
scientific proof that the inhalation of nitrous oxide could be
pushed to levels heretofore unknown, with great benefit." Here
then is Wells' main contribution -- "to push the inhalation much
farther than for a mere exhibition for fun." Wells' motivation
seems to have truly been the discovery of surgical pain relief,
not an exotic experiment performed a few times and abandoned,
as with Dr. Long, or a process to be patented for profit, as Morton
tried to do.
Despite the perceived failure at MGH and the upstaging
of his concept by Morton's use of a different agent, Wells' contribution
has been acknowledged. Volumes celebrating his work have marked
both the 1944 and 1994 centennial and sesquicentennial anniversaries.
Statues of Wells can be found in both Hartford, Connecticut, and
Paris, France. These trinkets of human remembrance are the least
we can do as tribute to the man who gave the world so much and
yet died in such despair.
A.J. Wright, M.L.S., is Clinical Librarian,
Department of Anesthesiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham,
Birmingham, Alabama.
References:
- Ring ME, Menczer LF. Horace Wells and his dental practice.
In: Wolfe RJ, Menczer LF. eds. I Awaken to Glory: Essays
Celebrating Horace Wells and the Sesquicentennial of His Discovery
of Anesthesia. Canton, MA: Science History; 1994:73-96.
- Small SD. Implications of the personal library of Horace Wells:
refocusing on the discovery of anesthesia. Anesthesia History
Association. ASA NEWSLETTER. 1994; 12(3):14-16.
- Small SD. Creating an historical narrative: messages from
the life of Horace Wells. In: Fink BR. ed. The History of
Anesthesia: Third International Symposium. Park Ridge, IL;
Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology; 1993:367-373.
- American Dental Association. Horace Wells Centenary Committee.
Horace Wells Dentist Father of Surgical Anesthesia. Hartford,
CT: American Dental Association; 1948.
- Wolfe RJ, Menczer LF, eds. I Awaken to Glory: Essays Celebrating
Horace Wells and the Sesquicentennial of His Discovery of Anesthesia.
Canton, MA: Science History; 1994.
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