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Perhaps no advance in medical knowledge has alleviated more human suffering than the discovery of anesthetics. This great gift to mankind was made by an American dentist in 1844.

On December 11, 1844 a young dentist of Hartford, Connecticut, Horace Wells, attended one of Professor Colton's exhibitions in which he demonstrated the effects of nitrous oxide on members of the audience. One of the volunteers from the audience, a man named Cooley who was known to Wells, severely injured his shin while stumbling around the stage. When he returned to his seat, Cooley was totally unaware that he had been hurt. To his great credit, Wells immediately understood the implications of this. He asked Colton to come to his office the next morning with a supply of nitrous oxide gas, and a colleague, Dr. John Riggs, extracted one of Wells' molar teeth after he had inhaled the gas. Upon awaking, he exclaimed, "I didn't feel it so much as the prick of a pin. A new era in tooth-pulling has arrived!"



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