Horace Wells

Horace Wells ( born January 21, 1815 in Hartford, Connecticut; † January 24, 1848 in New York City ) is the real discoverer of modern anesthesia.

After studying chemistry Wells opened together with his pupil William TG Morton, a dentist's office in Hartford. In a fair presentation in 1844, was used on the laughing gas because of its intoxicating effect on the public's amusement, Wells accidentally discovered the anesthetic (side) effect of the nitrous oxide when a man stumbled in a frenzy over an edge and thereby drew upon a violent bleeding shin wound without the slightest sensation of pain. Then Wells began to experiment with different inhalation anesthetics, including the later Morton attributed ether, but he held because of its side effects are inappropriate. Finally, he took advantage of the first successfully used until well into the 20th century nitrous oxide anesthesia for tooth extraction in his practice.

As Wells wanted to make known his discovery of the medical public at Boston General Hospital in 1845, failed his experiment due to incorrect dosing in an obese alcoholic. Then Wells' reputation in the professional world was ruined. He suffered a nervous breakdown while Morton erroneously regarded as the discoverer of anesthesia in 1846 with a renewed public and this time successful demonstration of ether the glory for himself and claimed to this day.

In Morton's orders he traveled through Europe from 1847, to promote his discovery and other anesthetics discovered by Morton, but was himself addicted to chloroform. After he splashed in the noise two women with acid, Wells finally landed in New York's Tombs prison Prison. There, Wells committed suicide by cutting into the leg artery, after he had previously become insensitive to pain with chloroform.