Nitrous Oxide Testimonial -- April 9, 2013

Doctor Peter Henri Van Der Weyde wrote the series of articles which gave this blog its name. This excerpt from an ad for dentistry using laughing gas, including a testimonial from Doctor Van Der Weyde, is from the 17-May-1866 Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.  Gardner Quincy Colton was a pioneer in using laughing gas as an anesthetic. 

Doctor Van Der Weyde also wrote about the use of nitrous oxide in dentistry in the 26-March-1864 New-York Times:
http://cablecarguy.blogspot.com/2013/02/nitrous-oxide-gas-february-11-2013.html

The image comes from the February, 1893 issue of Manufacturer and Builder.

A GOLDEN TRUTH.

TEETH EXTRACTED,
ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT PAIN.

BY THE 

Colton Dental Association,

No. 737 WALNUT STREET.

No. 19, Cooper Institute, New York.

No. 168 BALTIMORE STREET, BALTIMORE.

There is nothing which people dread more than pain, and there is no pain more excruciating than that of having a tooth extracted.

When I first introduced the NITROUS OXIDE or LAUGHING GAS as a substitute for chloroform and ether in dental operations, I met with sneers and ridicule.  But the now agent made a steady aud constant progress. The Gas has now had trial of three years, and has come out triumphantly!

Many of the leading Dentists of New York and Philadelphia, who have given up the use of chloroform and ether, send all their patients to me who require to take an anesthetic. I make a specialty in the use of the Gas and have business enough to justify me in making it fresh every day.

I now use about 300 gallons per day.

...

From a large number of Testimonials, I select the following extract from a letter addressed to me by Professor P. H. Vander Weyde, Professor of Chemistry in Girard College, formerly of New York Medical College --

"I am satisfied that nitrous oxide can be used in all cases where ether and chloroform cannot be safely administered.  In many cases the use of the two last named anasthetics is by judicious physicians considered unsafe: notwithstanding this, there are too many cases on record where the counter indications were overlooked, and fatal results have followed the use of ether and chloroform. I know no case in which I would consider nitrous oxide gas unadvisable, except in a case of consumption so far gone that the excitement attending the extraction of a tooth would be unsafe without any anesthetic.