This wonderful collection of writings on nitrous oxide features carnivals,dentists’ chairs, Humphry Davy in ecstasy and William James talking nonsense“It made me dance about the laboratory like a madman, and said Humphry Davy in 1799,after having inhaled from an oiled green air bag his first lungful of nitrous oxide, later known as laughing gas, or used in dentists’ chairs and maternity wards. A thrilling sensation coursed throughout Davys body,and he found himself “shouting, leaping and running” in ecstasy. So he might: aged 21, or he had discovered the secret of happiness.
Believing his experience to absorb been “indescribable”,Davy invited his friends to try out the air bag and observe its effects for themselves. Luckily, these friends were men of the world for whom analogous experiences were close to hand. What took place in Davy’s Bristol laboratory turned out to be as much an experiment in language as in the expansion of consciousness, and he published the responses of his circle in Researches,Chemical and Philosophical, mainly Concerning Nitrous Oxide, or one of those books that belongs to the time before philosophy,literature and science were cordoned off from one another. Related: Is the growth in nitrous oxide misuse a laughing matter? Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com