Horace Wells - Life

Life

Born in Hartford, Vermont, Wells was educated in Walpole, New Hampshire before studying dentistry in Boston. After obtaining a degree, Wells set up a practice in Hartford, Connecticut, with an associate named William T. G. Morton, who would become famous for his use of ether as an anesthetic on October 16, 1846.

Wells first bore witness to the effects of laughing gas in 1844 when he volunteered to have it demonstrated on him by Gardner Quincy Colton, a member of a traveling circus. Wells felt nothing, and was the first patient to be operated on under anesthesia, having his tooth extracted later that year by his associate, John Riggs. He then began utilising it on his own patients. He did not attempt to patent the discovery because he stated that pain relief should be 'as free as the air'.

He gave a demonstration to medical students at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in 1845. However, the gas was improperly administered and the patient cried out in pain. The audience of students jeered at Wells and left the theatre chanting "Humbug! Humbug!" Because of this embarrassment, Wells was discredited in the medical community. Later, however, Wells successfully had one of his own teeth removed while using inhalant anesthesia, proving its uses.

After this disgrace, Wells gave up dentistry and became a travelling salesman for the next two years, wandering Connecticut and selling canaries, shower baths and other household items. In 1847, he left for Paris after being given a demonstration on anesthesia by his prosperous former partner William Morton.

Sometime after returning to the United States, Wells became addicted to chloroform. At that time the effects of sniffing chloroform and ether were not known. In January 1848, Wells self-experimented with chloroform for a period of four weeks. He became increasingly deranged. One day, delirious, Wells rushed out into the street and threw sulfuric acid over the clothing of two prostitutes. He was committed to New York's infamous Tombs Prison. As the influence of the drug waned, Wells' mind started to clear. In despair, he realised the horror of what he had done. Wells requested the Guards to escort him to his house to pick up his shaving kit, then committed suicide, slitting an artery in his leg with a razor after inhaling an analgesic dose of chloroform to blot out the pain.

Wells is buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford, Connecticut.