January: The month that saw the revelation and rejection of early inhalational anesthetics
January saw the birth of many eminent personalities whose names came to be linked forever with nitrous oxide, including James Watt, who was born on January 19, 1736. He created much of the early equipment used to isolate and discover the properties of nitrous oxide. Watt was an ardent supporter of the “pneumatic institution” where medicinal and therapeutic applications of various gases were investigated to find a cure for the greatest disease prevalent then – tuberculosis. One of his assistants was Peter Mark Roget. Though known worldwide for founding the “Roget's Thesaurus,” he was also instrumental in nitrous oxide research alongside Watt, Beddoes, and Davy. Though anesthesia has benefited from the discovery of many gases by the pneumatic institution, Watt did not, and both his children died of TB.
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