"Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is used in medicine for analgesia and anesthesia. It is also used as a propellant for whipped cream canisters. Legally available in many jurisdictions with few restrictions, nitrous oxide has a well-known safety profile in acute short-term use, such as dentistry and obstetrics. In addition, clinical trials indicate the drug may relieve major depression. But nitrous oxide has a down side: increasing numbers of teens/young adults abuse this drug."
"Nitrous oxide stems back to 1772, and its development by English chemist Joseph Priestly. Its anesthetic properties were discovered a generation later by British chemist, Humphry Davy. At age 20, Davy experimented on himself, inhaling pure nitrous oxide, documenting giddiness, euphoria, and "sublime emotion." After deeming the gas safe, Davy shared it with friends, inhaling N₂O gas from a green silk bag."
"After Davy published his findings, " laughing gas exhibitions" became popular in Britain and the United States. A showman lectured on the gas before inviting volunteers to inhale the drug. During one such exhibition in Connecticut, dentist Horace Wells observed a man under the influence of nitrous oxide had injured his leg, but felt no pain. Wells immediately saw the drug's potential as a dental anesthetic. Today, N₂O is the most frequently used anesthetic for partial sedation in dentistry."
Nitrous oxide (N₂O) serves as an analgesic and anesthetic in medicine and as a whipped-cream propellant. The compound has an established short-term safety profile for dental and obstetric use and has shown antidepressant effects in clinical trials. The gas has historical roots in the 18th century with early self-experimentation and public "laughing gas" exhibitions that revealed anesthetic potential for dentistry. Readily sold without federal control in many places, N₂O has become a recreational substance among teens and young adults, producing a large rise in poisonings, emergency visits, EMS responses, and deaths.
Read at Psychology Today
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