The Pioneer of Dentistry

Horace Wells took his wife out on a date on December 10, 1844. He was a dentist and the show he and his wife were going to see was going to be performed by a “Professor” Gardner Quincy Colton.  Part of the act was having volunteers from the audience inhale laughing gas. Horace immediately thought how this laughing gas could be used in dentistry. After about a dozen operations Horace’s assistant, William Morton urges him to go public with it. Reluctantly he agrees to give a lecture and demonstration at Massachusetts General Hospital. But unfortunately, it waxes a major flop. The doctors brushed him off, and considered the demonstration a “humbug affair.” Embarrassed and defeated he returned home and sold his practice. He started to experiment with chloroform which made him increasingly unhinged. He attacks two prostitutes with sulfuric acid and is sent to prison, where he commits suicide.