I breathed the gas out of a silk bag, believing it to be nitrous oxide,
and was much surprised to find that it produced no sensations. After
the experiment, Mr. Davy told me it was common air.
I then breathed a mixture of common air and nitrous oxide. I felt a
kind of intoxication in the middle of the experiment, and stopping to
express this, destroyed any farther effects.
I now breathed pure nitrous oxide; the effect was gradual, and I at
first experienced fulness in the head, and afterwards sensations so
delightful, that I can compare them to no others, except those which
I felt (being a lover of music) about five years since in Westminster
Abbey, in some of the grand choruses in the Messiah, from the united
powers of 700 instruments of music. I continued exhilarated throughout
the day, slept at night remarkably sound, and experienced when I awoke
in the morning, a recurrence of pleasing sensation.
In another experiment, the effects was still greater, the pulse was
rendered fuller and quicker, I felt a sense of throbbing in the head
with highly pleasurable thrillings all over the frame. The new feelings
were at last so powerful as to absorb all perception. I distinguished
during and after the experiment, a taste on the tongue, like that
produced by the contact of zinc and silver.