The Origin of Weird: Humphry Davy

0:16 oh, hey there. Oh, he's here. I am kate and I am brad Bradley and this is the origin of weird. Just like that intro Weird. We don't have like a consistent intro, no, but this is by the history of buffoons. Sure is. Just wanted to make sure that was noted. Well, she's got to grab her computer bag. Noted. Noted. So how are you today? I'm doing really well, excellent. Yeah, I've got a nice energy drink. I was going to grab a soda, but I didn't, unfortunate. Well. So it goes.

0:56 I guess I'll be parched. Next time, I suppose. Well, you did say this is a short episode, so I don't have to wait too long. Is it. This is a short episode so I don't have to wait too long. Is that a short episode? I don't know. That's what you said it is. It's a quick, quick and short. Yeah, origin of weird, but it's like whoa, there goes the computer. Why don't? you just yep, there, it is okay. Yeah, focus on one thing, everything's fine I'm fine, it's fine, everything's fine okay. So yes, it's a. It's a fun little story, little is the key word. So we're going to talk about Humphrey David. Nope, Humphrey Davey. Well, okay, humphrey, davey Yep D-A-V-Y, davey D-A-V-Y okay.

1:39 Yeah, so he was born December 17th 1778. Oh, so when the United States was just a fledgling country? 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. Oh dear, his dad was a woodcarver and his mother was a stay-at-home mom. 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.

2:19 It doesn't matter where he's from, it's still accurate. I'm just saying I mean he could have been from australia or whatever. But it doesn't matter where he's from, it's still accurate. I'm just saying. I mean he could have been from Australia or whatever. America's still America. Yeah, anyways. Okay. So mom was a homemaker, dad was a woodcarver. Yeah, so one of Davey's brother, john. He said that their hometown wasn't exactly like an intellectual hotspot, like people were just intellectual hotspot. Okay, like people were just. We're simple. Yeah, more simple minded. Simple minded. Yeah, people preferred wrestling, cockfighting and drinking over intellectual things. Instead of books.

3:00 Yeah, exactly, yeah, imagine that. 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.

3:43 Okay, but he said, quote I could not discern the faculties by which he was afterwards so much distinguished, oh wow. Which is like 18th century for. Backhanded compliment I didn't see anything in him that hinted that he grew up to be a genius kind of a person. He was not going anywhere is what that's saying, yeah, that's what the teachers, yeah, yeah, what? yeah, that's what the teachers yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And reflecting on his school days, in a letter his mother wrote or, excuse me, Davey wrote to his mother. Quote learning, naturally, is a true pleasure. How unfortunate then it is that in most schools it has made a pain. Well, Davey's not wrong there.

4:24 Yeah, you didn't like school I, I was not up. 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. I like band, obviously, but I don't know. I just I struggled with school and just didn't have a great go at it in terms of I don't know. I wasn't like a bad student in terms of grades, I just wasn't like straight a's or anything like that. I skated by at the end just to get the fuck out. So, yeah, and then that's why I went to a tech school and felt like high school without lockers.

5:05 So I'm like, ah, let's go work, let's just go work, yeah. Well, after Davey's father died in 1794, davey was apprenticed by a local surgeon and apothecary. Oh so, while learning the ropes in the dispensary, davy began conducting chemistry experiments at home. 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. So he was trying some good experiments.

5:46 Apparently that's funny. In 1798, Davey worked at the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol. Okay. It's a medical research facility that studied how gases affected the human body. Not well. So pneumatic is basically related to air or gas under pressure. Okay, that's what pneumatic means. Gotcha. Starts with a P, like pterodactyl. 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. Poor people. Poor people. Yeah, so this institution was led by dr thomas bedot.

6:28 Um, he was kind of a mad scientist in his own right do you think bedot had a bidet? No, because it's spelled b-e-d-d-o-e-s. No I think that bedot have a bidet? It's just alliteration. 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? Yeah, except for when vesper sees it for the first time. What? is that? 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.

7:12 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. Yep, so I quickly ran her up here. 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. And so I get her up here Because you're racing up the stairs. Basically because she was starting to leak. That's how bad she had to go. And we had to change her afterwards, but she did a really good job doing her best to hold it in. Try to hold it in, whatever yeah, so we brought her up here and she finished going. 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? Like in a serious tone like it's gonna attack her.

7:54 And then I'm like, oh, don't worry about it, you're too small for it. And she just insisted what is that? It's called a bidet, you're too small to use it. It'll just shoot your back. But she was so concerned about because she's never really seen it before. I don't think she's ever actually used this bathroom before? Probably not, but um, it was just I don't know in the moment fucking funny, so but anyways okay so um. So at this pneumatic institution, that whole team run by dr thomas bedot um. 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?

8:46 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? so they found nitrous oxide. Oh, there you go, laughing gas if you will, yeah.

9:26 So this Joseph Priestley guy, he discovered the N2O. I'm just going to call it N2O sometimes just for those chemistry people out there. N2o is nitrous oxide. Okay. So he made it by heating ammonium nitrate, which released N2O gas when decomposed. Okay, jesus Christ. So he made it by heating ammonium nitrate, okay, which released N2O gas when decomposed. How did they figure out that back then? 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. Right. Yeah. 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.

10:08 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. Yeah, it's like it's just you think about. I think about shit like that, where it's like how did? how? Did someone first be like that's a good idea? Yeah, I just. 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. 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. Be like. Look at that, you're like okay oh, look at that snake with the hood on it we better write that down. I'm gonna pet that.

10:48 Why has it got a little hourglass on the back of its neck? You're a pretty snake, okay, okay okay anyways okay. 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. New air. 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? So he was the one that hired Humphrey Davy at the Pneumatic Institute. Okay. Davy was like I'm going to inhale this shit. He's like let's do this, man, let's do this, let's just go all in.

11:30 Yeah, and he inhaled N2O regularly, regularly. I mean, how regular are we talking about? Well, so regularly he started throwing parties. N2O parties. N2O parties, so he was the first guy to basically do whippets. Uh-huh, holy shit he said, quote the thrilling all over warmth. I seem to be a sublime bean so he was, like the first one addicted to nitrous oxide. That's fucking wild okay best shit ever dude, give me some more of that.

12:10 So he actually did end up writing a 580 page book in 1800 titled Researches, chemical and Philosophical, chiefly Concerning Nitrous Oxide. So it was basically science manual coupled with his own personal diary Experiences. Yeah, his experimentation diary. Experiences, yeah, his experimentation, exactly. That makes sense. 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. Sure, well, because he's taken enough of it. So also in this tome he writes about his parties. So Davey threw lots of gas parties, Because how else are you going to experiment with gas?

12:55 how did they? And because, like, obviously, I mean you know what a whip, it is right is that from like air compressed games? Yeah, so, like, how did they? Like, did you come across that at all? And how they? No, I did. Oh, I don't know what. What's the word I'm looking for? how did they deliver it? basically yeah um. So he had. 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. Yeah, but the people on his client list were other scientists. He was a poet, like an amateur poet himself, so he invited other poet friends, other doctor friends.

13:41 But I'm just kind of like picturing like the 1800s, early 1800s, literally. Like a candlelit drawing room with massive like paintings on the wall. Some bookshelves you know, lovely leather-bound bookshelves and beautiful like lidded chandeliers and laughing gas. Nitrous oxide can burn, though, right. I believe that is the case. So I think so. I mean they had like gas lamps and candles back then yeah I would. I'm surprised no one blew up there was something that was incredibly flammable that they found it.

14:23 It must have been into, oh I guess yeah, I'm not sure. I don't remember, I did read it somewhere when. I was researching this, so maybe it wasn't too well You're good. His attendees. He quoted what some of his attendees would say about the Laughing. Guest. I'm going to read you a couple quotes. Oh, no, okay, Give me more. Give me more. This is the most pleasurable thing I've ever experienced. Must have never been with a woman. I don't know, I got nothing. 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.

15:08 Wow, that's how much did they have. Jesus Christ, I am an air balloon filled with bliss. I see God and also I have no toes. I think that might be my favorite one. Did God steal his toes? 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. Wow, that was Victorian. This shit is awesome. Yeah, give me some more of that shit. And the last one I feel like the sound of a harp, just the sound.

15:49 Not a harp, nope Just the sound. Like the sound of a harp, just the sound. Not a harp, nope, just the sound, the sound of a harp. yep the vibrations. Wow. So obviously, some of the effects that he observed were short bursts of euphoria, right Uncontrollable laughter. I don't laugh at gas. Vivid hallucinations, yep Existential insight followed by mild nausea and zero sense of responsibility well, yeah, I mean when you're doing that. 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.

16:31 End quote. All right, let's inhale this gas and maybe cut off an arm. Just to see what happens. Well, isn't that what a lot of dentists use? Yes, right, so he noticed this pretty early on. It was like a pain analgesic. I'll believe it. 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. Among those caught up in this like gas craze was American dentist Horace Wells.

17:15 Horace. After watching someone injure themselves under the influence of N2O and feeling nothing, Wells had a light bulb moment. Light bulb. What if I inhale this and pull out a tooth? Yeah, I mean he's a dentist. He gave it a shot, yeah well, look at that. I just said that, and here we are on the story. And he was surprised. Oh my gosh, I didn't feel anything. So he pulled his own tooth out. No, I think he had an unwilling participant. Unwilling oh dear, you're going to get your tooth pulled and you're gonna get your tooth pulled and you're gonna like it, you're gonna like it. So he was convinced that he'd stumbled, stumbled on, like the future of painless surgery, and he excitedly pitched his idea to other surgeons.

18:01 So pulling a tooth is obviously one thing, slicing someone open quite quite different, a little bit different yeah, I mean it's, you know and they kind of well, wells it said wells, but I don't know if it was Wells or someone else in the operating room or whatever misjudged the dose during a public surgical demo. Oh dear. And the patient woke up mid-procedure oh dear Whoops-a-daises, whoops-a-daises, oh dear Whoopsie, daisies, whoopsie. So nitrous oxide as an analgesic was pretty much abandoned at that time. They're like yeah, I don't think that's going to work. Well, because they needed to dial it in. Yeah, that's what it is.

18:42 It would take another decade and a more cooperative patient. Well, hopefully For anesthesia to basically get another chance Right. Do you think they thought? back then because they didn't know better that if they gave them the nitrous oxide and cut them open it would just escape? Probably not, because it goes into the lungs. Yeah, but they didn't know, fucking better. Anyways. So because nitrous oxide was kind of abandoned um went more with ether as the go-to. Yeah, that's great stuff. Um, and that will just knock you out entirely yeah, which is, you know, probably not a bad thing yeah, but uh, yeah, that, honestly.

19:27 That's the end of the story like just that's how laughing gas like kind of became a thing. And they did end up using N2O in dental practices and stuff, because you can be fully conscious and just numbed. And that's the biggest thing is just being numbed, Because I think so. Xavier has a couple tooth things going on or whatever. Oh does he. And I don't remember if he had to have that or if he couldn't get through it. He's going to have to. I don't remember the scenario, but he's all like nervous about it and stuff he gets. Yeah, he gets really nervous really quick, though, and then it's hard to calm him down. So this will be fun, but, um, I know I've.

20:08 I don't know if I've ever actually had, I just always had I felt like novocaine yeah not nitrous, I think in all my dentist days, which I want a lot when I was younger, so I feel like I missed out have you ever done? A whip it? no, I have what was it like? I don't know, I did a bunch in one night once yeah yeah, I was 14 and my brother picked me up, took me to Madison, we partied all night and then I got back at like 4 am and then I go to school the next day, yikes yeah, I was really dumb looking back on it, but no, I was as far as like drugs and alcohol. I was actually pretty, pretty late bloomer in that yeah, you had said you didn't start drinking until like 20.

20:50 Yeah, yeah, I think I had like my at least what I remember. I had like my first actual beverage when I was 20 right um. And then as far as weed, I think I was in college, so 18 plus, so probably even older than I started drinking. Right. Yeah, because I was always nervous about it, because I have such bad vertigo and motion sickness I didn't want anything else really to affect me and I was nervous that weed would do that. And lo and behold, it does weird the the couple times that I have done it.

21:31 It is yeah, it's affected me in a way that I didn't care for. Um yeah I've smoked it, I've gummies, chocolate edibles, yeah yeah, edibles, but um, I am absolutely pro-. Use of it. Use of it Just not for yourself. Yeah, I just can't. I'm the same way. I know a bunch of people that do it on a regular basis. I do not, Obviously. When I was younger, I tried it, which is not the same type of weed you can get today. It was basically ditch weed and all it did was make me want to go to sleep and eat and I'm like I already want to do that.

22:12 I don't need to pay money to do that, I'll do that on my own. So I just I never really did it much, um, I couldn't tell you the last time I did. It's been a long time, yeah. So yeah, I just you know, like I said, I'm pro it too for to eat your own kind of thing. It's just personally not for me and I I really cannot stand the smell right so even if I were to do it, I would probably go with an edible route. Yeah, because then you don't have to smoke it. Yeah, but, um, I forgot what I was supposed to say. Oh well, whatever, sorry, it's all right. You do it a lot, I know, um, but uh, no, I mean to eat your own. Good for them, it helps a lot of people. It's got a lot, I know. But no, I mean to each their own Good for them. It helps a lot of people. It's got a lot of benefits too. For sure. It's just funny that you know it's getting more and more popular these days in terms of being legal.

22:54 Yeah, and now there's drinks with THC in it. Oh yeah, well, and that's funnyC drinks and stuff, because it's the different process and whatever, and blah, blah, blah. I don't remember all of it, but you see THC drinks all over the place. I mean I've I sold some when I used to sell beverages. So it's wild how, how much you see all that compared to what it used to be. But there's a lot of States that have a long ways to go. So, like Wisconsin, wisconsin uses usually seems to be pretty far behind on a lot of that stuff. But uh, you know, like my brother lives in maine, I think it's legal there. It's legal in illinois.

23:34 It's legal in a lot of places colorado, all that, you know, I think it's almost like half the states now but it's still like not federally legal which is weird. I don't understand all that laws and stuff. But yeah, nitrous oxide it's probably been. It's a gas. Welp. I suppose, All right, buffoons. That's it for today's episode. Buckle up, because we've got another historical adventure waiting for you. Next time Feeling hungry for more buffoonery, or maybe you have a burning question or a wild historical theory for us to explore. Hit us up on social media.

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