July 30, 2025
The Origin of Weird: Humphry Davy
Ever wonder how laughing gas went from Victorian party entertainment to dental offices? Our journey through the life of Humphrey Davy reveals the surprisingly wild origin story behind one of medicine's most unusual discoveries.
Born in 1778 in Cornwall, England, Davy was an unremarkable student from a simple town where wrestling and cockfighting were preferred to intellectual pursuits. After being apprenticed to a local surgeon following his father's death, Davy began conducting chemistry experiments that drove his family crazy – his sister complained about ruined dresses while friends joked he might "blow us all into the air."
The turning point came in 1798 when Davy joined the Pneumatic Institution, a medical research facility studying how gases affected the human body. While other scientists were cautious, Davy took the bold step of regularly inhaling nitrous oxide himself. What followed were what could only be described as the world's first "whippet parties," where Davy invited fellow scientists and poets to experience this mysterious gas. Their reports ranged from feeling "the most pleasurable thing I've ever experienced" to the delightfully bizarre "I feel like the sound of a harp" and "I see God and also I have no toes."
Davy's meticulous documentation of these experiences in a 580-page book included the prophetic observation that nitrous oxide "may probably be used with advantage during surgical operations" – though it would take another 40+ years before American dentist Horace Wells would make the connection between the recreational gas and painless dental procedures. Even then, a botched public demonstration (where the patient woke mid-procedure) temporarily derailed nitrous oxide's medical future.
The story of laughing gas reminds us that the line between recreational substances and medical breakthroughs is often surprisingly thin, and that some of our most valuable medical tools came from scientists willing to experiment on themselves first. Join us as we explore how a young scientist's parties changed the future of pain management forever.
Curious about more bizarre medical discoveries or have a strange historical tale you'd like us to investigate? Email us at historybuffoonspodcast@gmail.com or find us on social media as History Buffoons Podcast.
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00:16 - Meeting The History Buffoons
01:27 - Introducing Humphrey Davy
05:53 - The Pneumatic Institution & Nitrous Oxide
12:35 - Victorian Gas Parties & Hallucinations
17:15 - Discovering Anesthesia From Party Drug
21:30 - Modern Drug Use & Legalization
24:00 - Show Wrap-Up & Contact Info
WEBVTT
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oh, hey there.
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Oh, he's here.
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I am kate and I am brad Bradley and this is the origin of weird.
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Just like that intro Weird.
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We don't have like a consistent intro, no, but this is by the history of buffoons.
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Sure is.
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Just wanted to make sure that was noted.
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Well, she's got to grab her computer bag.
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Noted.
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Noted.
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So how are you today?
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I'm doing really well, excellent.
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Yeah, I've got a nice energy drink.
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I was going to grab a soda, but I didn't, unfortunate.
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Well.
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So it goes.
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I guess I'll be parched.
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Next time, I suppose.
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Well, you did say this is a short episode, so I don't have to wait too long.
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Is it.
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This is a short episode so I don't have to wait too long.
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Is that a short episode?
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I don't know.
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That's what you said it is.
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It's a quick, quick and short.
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Yeah, origin of weird, but it's like whoa, there goes the computer.
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Why don't?
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you just yep, there, it is okay.
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Yeah, focus on one thing, everything's fine I'm fine, it's fine, everything's fine okay.
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So yes, it's a.
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It's a fun little story, little is the key word.
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So we're going to talk about Humphrey David.
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Nope, Humphrey Davey.
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Well, okay, humphrey, davey Yep D-A-V-Y, davey D-A-V-Y okay.
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Yeah, so he was born December 17th 1778.
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Oh, so when the United States was just a fledgling country?
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december 17 1778 yes but we're in cornwall, england, we're in england, we're in england, we're in england damn you, king george blast um, so he was the oldest of five kids.
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Oh dear, his dad was a woodcarver and his mother was a stay-at-home mom.
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She was, she was a homemaker okay, I would like just to note though, I wasn't wrong in saying we were just a fledgling country.
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It doesn't matter where he's from, it's still accurate.
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I'm just saying I mean he could have been from australia or whatever.
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But it doesn't matter where he's from, it's still accurate.
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I'm just saying.
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I mean he could have been from Australia or whatever.
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America's still America.
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Yeah, anyways.
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Okay.
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So mom was a homemaker, dad was a woodcarver.
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Yeah, so one of Davey's brother, john.
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He said that their hometown wasn't exactly like an intellectual hotspot, like people were just intellectual hotspot.
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Okay, like people were just.
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We're simple.
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Yeah, more simple minded.
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Simple minded.
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Yeah, people preferred wrestling, cockfighting and drinking over intellectual things.
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Instead of books.
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Yeah, exactly, yeah, imagine that.
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So Humphrey Davy did actually end up going to a few different grammar schools, um, like he was kind of um under the wing of his grandparents a little bit, and every time I hear grammar school, I just think of nelly and country grammar hot shit down down, baby, your street in a rain drove yeah, yeah, oh, there you go al every song okay, so um his teachers were never particularly impressed with um davey well, he came from a simple place, he did one of his instructors said this of him much later in Davy's life.
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Okay, but he said, quote I could not discern the faculties by which he was afterwards so much distinguished, oh wow.
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Which is like 18th century for.
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Backhanded compliment I didn't see anything in him that hinted that he grew up to be a genius kind of a person.
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He was not going anywhere is what that's saying, yeah, that's what the teachers, yeah, yeah, what?
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yeah, that's what the teachers yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And reflecting on his school days, in a letter his mother wrote or, excuse me, Davey wrote to his mother.
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Quote learning, naturally, is a true pleasure.
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How unfortunate then it is that in most schools it has made a pain.
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Well, Davey's not wrong there.
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Yeah, you didn't like school I, I was not up.
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There's parts of it that I did like, but I just there's lots of it that I struggled with just because of my adhd or whatever the fuck I have, and so on and um, like again, I love math but I like certain things.
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I like band, obviously, but I don't know.
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I just I struggled with school and just didn't have a great go at it in terms of I don't know.
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I wasn't like a bad student in terms of grades, I just wasn't like straight a's or anything like that.
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I skated by at the end just to get the fuck out.
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So, yeah, and then that's why I went to a tech school and felt like high school without lockers.
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So I'm like, ah, let's go work, let's just go work, yeah.
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Well, after Davey's father died in 1794, davey was apprenticed by a local surgeon and apothecary.
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Oh so, while learning the ropes in the dispensary, davy began conducting chemistry experiments at home.
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Nice kind of drove the family nuts at times I'm sure it did his sister complained that he was ruining her dresses with all the corrosive materials oh, geez, wow okay and one friend joked that davy would likely quote blow us all into the air, end, quote, quote.
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So he was trying some good experiments.
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Apparently that's funny.
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In 1798, Davey worked at the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol.
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Okay.
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It's a medical research facility that studied how gases affected the human body.
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Not well.
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So pneumatic is basically related to air or gas under pressure.
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Okay, that's what pneumatic means.
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Gotcha.
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Starts with a P, like pterodactyl.
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Yeah, they were willing to go through an airport and be, like now, boarding at gate pterodactyl, and the people are going to go run to T if they don't know.
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Poor people.
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Poor people.
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Yeah, so this institution was led by dr thomas bedot.
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Um, he was kind of a mad scientist in his own right do you think bedot had a bidet?
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No, because it's spelled b-e-d-d-o-e-s.
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No I think that bedot have a bidet?
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It's just alliteration.
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Whatever, keep moving I know it is jesus christ explain it to me more so what you do here, yes, is you move the fuck up but days are great yeah, they get your bum all clean sure, do you?
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Yeah, except for when vesper sees it for the first time.
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What?
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is that?
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oh my gosh, please tell that story real fast so we have a bidet in our, our pod loft bathroom on the toilet and yeah, it's just an attachment for the toilet, just attach it onto it.
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And uh, xavier was using our other bathroom so vespa really had to go and she's potty training, so we want to keep it up.
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Yep, so I quickly ran her up here.
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I still had the pod bag on the steps, so I had to step over it and shit, I'm like please don't drop the kid, don't drop the kid.
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And so I get her up here Because you're racing up the stairs.
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Basically because she was starting to leak.
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That's how bad she had to go.
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And we had to change her afterwards, but she did a really good job doing her best to hold it in.
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Try to hold it in, whatever yeah, so we brought her up here and she finished going.
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But then so she's sitting on the toilet and the bidet, like attachment, like where you turn it on, is right to your right, and she just looks at it and goes, what's that?
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Like in a serious tone like it's gonna attack her.
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And then I'm like, oh, don't worry about it, you're too small for it.
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And she just insisted what is that?
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It's called a bidet, you're too small to use it.
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It'll just shoot your back.
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But she was so concerned about because she's never really seen it before.
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I don't think she's ever actually used this bathroom before?
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Probably not, but um, it was just I don't know in the moment fucking funny, so but anyways okay so um.
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So at this pneumatic institution, that whole team run by dr thomas bedot um.
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They believe that gases might cure diseases like tuberculosis okay so there wasn't like an increasing number of factory workers around this time and they were all contracting like lung conditions, like tuberculosis, sure?
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So there's this guy named joseph priestly who had recently discovered oxygen as a thing you know like they didn't know that it existed and just yeah, yeah, yeah, they didn't yeah, they didn't realize that that's what we were breathing oh, okay, I mean, I guess, and he and this priestly guy suggested it was quote vital air like essential to life and health and so doctors like thomas bedot thought that if bad air could kill you, maybe good air could heal you, sure um?
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so they found nitrous oxide.
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Oh, there you go, laughing gas if you will, yeah.
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So this Joseph Priestley guy, he discovered the N2O.
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I'm just going to call it N2O sometimes just for those chemistry people out there.
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N2o is nitrous oxide.
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Okay.
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So he made it by heating ammonium nitrate, which released N2O gas when decomposed.
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Okay, jesus Christ.
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So he made it by heating ammonium nitrate, okay, which released N2O gas when decomposed.
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How did they figure out that back then?
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Experimentation Well, I get that, they're just going to be like I'm going to take this random substance and heat it up and see what happens.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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I mean that's pretty much the basis of all things is the experimentation, because who decided like, like, oh, that looks good, I'm gonna cook it and eat it right for the first fucking time or whatever.
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Just pooped out something, let's cook it let's break it open and hey, there's a yellow thing in there, let's eat it.
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Yeah, it's like it's just you think about.
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I think about shit like that, where it's like how did?
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how?
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Did someone first be like that's a good idea?
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Yeah, I just.
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It blows my mind that someone would come up with that, especially because when a lot of this stuff was invented or discovered, whatever you want to- call it yeah that most people were.
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I don't know they're not living in this time is what I'm saying so it's like wow, all right the first person to like play with a black widow spider.
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Be like.
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Look at that, you're like okay oh, look at that snake with the hood on it we better write that down.
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I'm gonna pet that.
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Why has it got a little hourglass on the back of its neck?
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You're a pretty snake, okay, okay okay anyways okay.
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So Priestley, the guy who discovered the N2O, he did not breathe in it himself, he just kind of noted that it was a new kind of air, essentially.
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New air.
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And since Thomas Badeau was experimenting with all these types of air and gases, n2o was just like the next best thing, the next thing that they were going to look into, right?
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So he was the one that hired Humphrey Davy at the Pneumatic Institute.
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Okay.
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Davy was like I'm going to inhale this shit.
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He's like let's do this, man, let's do this, let's just go all in.
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Yeah, and he inhaled N2O regularly, regularly.
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I mean, how regular are we talking about?
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Well, so regularly he started throwing parties.
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N2O parties.
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N2O parties, so he was the first guy to basically do whippets.
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Uh-huh, holy shit he said, quote the thrilling all over warmth.
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I seem to be a sublime bean so he was, like the first one addicted to nitrous oxide.
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That's fucking wild okay best shit ever dude, give me some more of that.
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So he actually did end up writing a 580 page book in 1800 titled Researches, chemical and Philosophical, chiefly Concerning Nitrous Oxide.
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So it was basically science manual coupled with his own personal diary Experiences.
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Yeah, his experimentation diary.
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Experiences, yeah, his experimentation, exactly.
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That makes sense.
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So in it he thought that nitrous oxide might be able to treat mental illness or be used as an anesthetic which he figures out along the way.
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Sure, well, because he's taken enough of it.
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So also in this tome he writes about his parties.
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So Davey threw lots of gas parties, Because how else are you going to experiment with gas?
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how did they?
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And because, like, obviously, I mean you know what a whip, it is right is that from like air compressed games?
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Yeah, so, like, how did they?
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Like, did you come across that at all?
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And how they?
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No, I did.
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Oh, I don't know what.
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What's the word I'm looking for?
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how did they deliver it?
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basically yeah um.
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So he had.
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Let's see, it was like a gas filled bladder so almost like a balloon, yeah, kind of yeah, exactly okay, yeah, they called it like a like it was green and silk, I don't know that's all right.
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Yeah, but the people on his client list were other scientists.
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He was a poet, like an amateur poet himself, so he invited other poet friends, other doctor friends.
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But I'm just kind of like picturing like the 1800s, early 1800s, literally.
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Like a candlelit drawing room with massive like paintings on the wall.
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Some bookshelves you know, lovely leather-bound bookshelves and beautiful like lidded chandeliers and laughing gas.
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Nitrous oxide can burn, though, right.
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I believe that is the case.
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So I think so.
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I mean they had like gas lamps and candles back then yeah I would.
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I'm surprised no one blew up there was something that was incredibly flammable that they found it.
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It must have been into, oh I guess yeah, I'm not sure.
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I don't remember, I did read it somewhere when.
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I was researching this, so maybe it wasn't too well You're good.
00:14:35.683 --> 00:14:38.633
His attendees.
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He quoted what some of his attendees would say about the Laughing.
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Guest.
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I'm going to read you a couple quotes.
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Oh, no, okay, Give me more.
00:14:45.354 --> 00:14:46.197
Give me more.
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This is the most pleasurable thing I've ever experienced.
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Must have never been with a woman.
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I don't know, I got nothing.
00:14:56.899 --> 00:15:08.100
Wow, I didn't expect that, to get a laugh like that, but I'll take it oh my gosh, I seem to lose the sense of my own weight and imagined I was sinking into the ground.
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Wow, that's how much did they have.
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Jesus Christ, I am an air balloon filled with bliss.
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I see God and also I have no toes.
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I think that might be my favorite one.
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Did God steal his toes?
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Thoughts rushed like a torrent through my mind, as if their velocity had been suddenly accelerated by the bursting of a barrier which had before retained them in their natural and equal course.
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Wow, that was Victorian.
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This shit is awesome.
00:15:44.216 --> 00:15:45.673
Yeah, give me some more of that shit.
00:15:45.673 --> 00:15:49.732
And the last one I feel like the sound of a harp, just the sound.
00:15:49.732 --> 00:15:50.575
Not a harp, nope Just the sound.
00:15:50.575 --> 00:15:51.956
Like the sound of a harp, just the sound.
00:15:52.878 --> 00:15:55.160
Not a harp, nope, just the sound, the sound of a harp.
00:15:55.201 --> 00:15:56.383
yep the vibrations.
00:15:57.504 --> 00:15:57.905
Wow.
00:15:58.270 --> 00:16:05.335
So obviously, some of the effects that he observed were short bursts of euphoria, right Uncontrollable laughter.
00:16:05.755 --> 00:16:06.359
I don't laugh at gas.
00:16:06.831 --> 00:16:17.475
Vivid hallucinations, yep Existential insight followed by mild nausea and zero sense of responsibility well, yeah, I mean when you're doing that.
00:16:17.475 --> 00:16:31.182
So davey even noted quote as nitrous oxide, in its extensive operation, appears capable of destroying pain, it may probably be used with advantage during surgical operations.
00:16:31.182 --> 00:16:31.764
End quote.
00:16:31.764 --> 00:16:36.298
All right, let's inhale this gas and maybe cut off an arm.
00:16:37.432 --> 00:16:38.397
Just to see what happens.
00:16:38.397 --> 00:16:42.820
Well, isn't that what a lot of dentists use?
00:16:42.840 --> 00:16:46.960
Yes, right, so he noticed this pretty early on.
00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:48.998
It was like a pain analgesic.
00:16:53.009 --> 00:16:53.331
I'll believe it.
00:16:53.350 --> 00:17:09.551
I know it's a word and I don't know how to say it properly, and uh, but that way of thinking didn't really come about for another, like 40 plus years okay, um by 1840, the uk and america were all about these laughing gas parties.
00:17:09.551 --> 00:17:15.321
Among those caught up in this like gas craze was American dentist Horace Wells.
00:17:15.864 --> 00:17:16.263
Horace.
00:17:17.030 --> 00:17:25.376
After watching someone injure themselves under the influence of N2O and feeling nothing, Wells had a light bulb moment.
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