Episode Details

Chemist Sir Humphry Davy is known for his work with nitrous oxide, or laughing gas. That early part of his career is the focus of part one of this two-parter.

Research:

• "Britons take laughing gas merrily. Tories take it more seriously." The Economist, 27 Sept. 2023, p. NA. Gale OneFile: Business, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A766770794/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=c0888abb. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.
• "Erroneous element." Muse, vol. 20, no. 7, Sept. 2016, p. 7. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A466296806/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=795a6d0c. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.
• “Sir Humphrey Davy’s Harmful Emissions – November 2015.” Newcastle University Special Collections. 11/30/2015. https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/speccoll/2015/11/30/sir-humphrey-davys-harmful-emissions/
• Adams, Max. "Humphry Davy and the murder lamp: Max Adams investigates the truth behind the introduction of a key invention of the early Industrial Revolution." History Today, vol. 55, no. 8, Aug. 2005, pp. 4+. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A135180355/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=2d163818. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.
• Buslov, Alexander BSc; Carroll, Matthew BSc; Desai, Manisha S. MD. Frozen in Time: A History of the Synthesis of Nitrous Oxide and How the Process Remained Unchanged for Over 2 Centuries. Anesthesia & Analgesia 127(1):p 65-70, July 2018. | DOI: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000003423
• Cantor, Geoffrey. “Humphry Davy: a study in narcissism?” The Royal Society. 4/11/2018. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2017.0055#FN95R
• Cartwright, F.F. “Humphry Davy’s Researches on Nitrous Oxide.” British Journal of Anesthesia. Vol. 44. 1972.
• Davy, Humprhy. “Researches, chemical and philosophical : chiefly concerning nitrous oxide, or diphlogisticated nitrous air, and its respiration.” London : printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church-Yard, by Biggs and Cottle, Bristol. 1800.
• Eveleth, Rose. “Here’s What It Was Like to Discover Laughing Gas.” Smithsonian. 3/27/2014. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/heres-what-it-was-discover-laughing-gas-180950289/
• Gibbs, Frederick William. "Sir Humphry Davy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 26 Feb. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Humphry-Davy-Baronet. Accessed 3 April 2024.
• Gregory, Joshua C. “The Life and Work of Sir Humphry Davy.” Science Progress in the Twentieth Century (1919-1933), Vol. 24, No. 95. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43428894
• Hunt, Lynn and Margaret Jacob. “The Affective Revolution in 1790s Britain.” Eighteenth-Century Studies , Summer, 2001, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Summer, 2001). https://www.jstor.org/stable/30054227 j
• Jacob, Margaret C. and Michael J. Sauter. “Why Did Humphry Davy and Associates Not Pursue the Pain-Alleviating Effects of Nitrous Oxide?” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences , APRIL 2002, Vol. 57, No. 2. Via https://www.jstor.org/stable/24623678
• James, Frank A. J. L. "Davy, Humphry." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 20, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008, pp. 249-252. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2830905611/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=c68d87c2. Accessed 3 Apr. 2024.
• James, Louis. “’Now Inhale the Gas’: Interactive Readership in Two Victorian Boys' Periodicals, 1855–1870.” Victorian Periodicals Review, Volume 42, Number 1, Spring 2009. https://doi.org/10.1353/vpr.0.0062
• Jay, Mike. “‘O, Excellent Air Bag’: Humphry Davy and Nitrous Oxide.” 8/6/2014. Public Domain Review. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/o-excellent-air-bag-humphry-davy-and-nitrous-oxide/
• Jay, Mike. “The Atmosphere of Heaven: The 1799 Nitrous Oxide Researches Reconsidered.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London , 20 September 2009, Vol. 63, No. 3, Thomas Beddoes, 1760-1808 (20 September 2009). https://www.jstor.org/stable/