In 1799 Humphry Davy tested laughing gas on himself and his friends, and the results were recorded in detail

science & techThe Public Domain Review1799–1800 · Bristol, England

In 1799 Humphry Davy tested laughing gas on himself and his friends, and the results were recorded in detail

the gist

In 1799 the young chemist Humphry Davy began inhaling nitrous oxide, which was then called laughing gas. He made it by heating ammonium nitrate, collected the gas and breathed it through a mouthpiece. He reported giddiness, flushed cheeks, intense pleasure and vivid ideas, and his sessions grew longer and more frequent. He also shared the gas with patients and with friends, including the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. Their written accounts were published in his Researches, Chemical and Philosophical in 1800. The book is part chemistry and part a record of early recreational drug use.

how it works

Nitrous oxide acts on the brain and produces euphoria and altered sensation when inhaled. Davy's careful records allowed chemists to compare reactions across many people.

so what

Davy's work established nitrous oxide as a substance with powerful effects on perception and mood, and it later led to its use as an anaesthetic. The experiments also show how close early chemistry was to self-experimentation and parties.

fun fact

Davy wrote that nitrous oxide might be used in surgery to relieve pain, an idea that was not put into practice for decades.

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

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