The first time Mr. Coleridge inspired the nitrous oxide, he felt a highly pleasurable sensation of warmth over his whole frame: he adds, that the only motion which he felt inclined to make, was that of laughing at those who were looking at him: a symptom as equivocal, perhaps, as that exhibited by the Laureate.
A number of other accounts are given, but those already related are perhaps sufficient to establish the fact, that the gas in question possesses an intoxicating quality, to which the enthusiasm of persons submitting to its operation has imparted a character of extravagance wholly inconsistent with truth.
It will be admitted that there must have been something singularly ludicrous in the whole exhibition. Imagine a party of grave philosophers, with bags of silk tied to their mouths, stamping, roaring, and laughing about the apartment; it is scarcely possible to conceive a richer subject for the pencil of a Bunbury. We cannot then be surprised at any terms of ridicule in which a stranger, witnessing such an operation, might describe it. M. T. Fievée[29] appears to have considered the practice as a national vice, and whimsically introduces it amongst the catalogue of follies to which he considers the English nation to be addicted.
Taking leave of these laughing philosophers, we must now proceed to a much more serious branch of the subject of Pneumatic Medicine. "Having observed," says Davy, "that no painful effects were produced by the application of nitrous gas to the bare muscular fibre, I began to imagine that this gas might also be breathed with impunity, provided it were possible in any way to free the lungs of common air before inspiration, so as to prevent the formation of nitrous acid.
"On this supposition, during a fit of enthusiasm produced by the respiration of nitrous oxide, I resolved to endeavour to breathe nitrous gas: one hundred and fourteen cubic inches of it were accordingly introduced into the large mercurial air-holder; two small silk bags of the capacity of seven quarts were filled with nitrous oxide.
"After a forced exhaustion of my lungs, my nose being accurately closed, I made three inspirations and expirations of nitrous oxide in one of the bags, in order to free my lungs, as much as possible, from atmospheric oxygen; then, after a full expiration of the nitrous oxide, I transferred my lips from the mouthpiece of the bag to that of the air-holder, and, turning the stop-cock, attempted to inspire the nitrous gas. In passing through my mouth and fauces, it tasted astringent and highly disagreeable; it occasioned a sense of burning in the throat, and produced a spasm of the epiglottis, so painful as to oblige me to desist immediately from attempts to inspire it. After removing my lips from the mouthpiece, when I opened them to inspire common air, nitrous acid was immediately formed in my mouth, which burnt the tongue and palate, injured the teeth, and produced an inflammation of the mucous membrane, which lasted for some hours.
"As, after the respiration of nitrous oxide, a small portion of the residual atmospheric air always remained in the lungs mingled with the gas, so is it probable that, in the experiment just related, a minute portion of nitrous acid was formed; and, if so, I perhaps owe the preservation of my life to the circumstance; for, supposing that I had succeeded in taking a full inspiration of nitrous gas, and even that it had not produced any positive effects, it is not likely that I should, by breathing nitrous oxide, have so completely freed my lungs from it, as to have prevented the formation of nitrous acid, when I again inspired common air. I never design again to attempt so rash an experiment."
His attempt to breathe carburetted hydrogen gas was scarcely less terrific and appalling.
"Mr. Watt's observations on the respiration of diluted hydro-carbonate by man, and the experiments of Dr. Beddoes on the destruction of animals by the same gas, proved that its effects were highly deleterious.
"As it destroyed life, apparently by rendering the muscular fibre inirritable, without producing any previous excitement, I was anxious to compare its sensible effects with those of nitrous oxide, which at this time I believed to destroy life by producing the highest possible excitement.