About 1800 Humphry Davy experimented with nitrous oxide gas
and suggested its use in surgery. Horace Wells, a dentist
of Hartford, Conn., uses the gas for the painless extraction
of teeth. Sulphuric ether also observed to produce insensibility
to pain. Dr. Crauford Long, of Jefferson, Ga., uses it in
1842 for the excision of a tumour. Wm. T. G. Morton, Boston,
employs ether in dentistry, and Dr. Warren in surgery. Dr.
Simpson, Edinburgh, introduces chloroform to prevent the
pains of childbirth. Anæsthesia not only abolishes pain,
it broadens the scope of surgery and makes operations safe
which formerly were most perilous. 3