Death of Dr. Horace Wells.

Date:
[1848?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Death of Dr. Horace Wells. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    V/Z loo DEATH OF DB. HORACE WELLS. Horace Wells, late of this city, located himself, a few weeks since, at 120 Chambers street, New York. He was the ori- ginal inventor of the application of gas in surgical operations, to prevent pain. Some of his friends supposed he was some- what deranged when he left Hartford. His mind has been a great deal excited for some time past, and he has personally experimented to a great extent in gases, prepared in different forms. The New York Herald notices the arrest of Wells, and gives the following account of his operations, while under the influence of chloroform: It appears that on last Thursday night, and every night since, complaints have been made by the different well- dressed girls who promenade Broadway in the evening, to the police of the Third ward, setting forth that some malicious individuals were in the habit of throwing vitriol upon their cloaks, shawls, dresses, and hats, as they passed along the streets, destroying clothing, valued at many hundred dollars. Upon this information, a close watch was kept, in order to detect the malicious scoundrel who would be guilty of an act so base. Consequently, on Friday night, between nine and ten o'clock, as Jane White and Louisa Mariad, of No. 102 Church street, were passing Broadway, near the Museum, Jane was attracted by the noise of, as she thought, some liquid being thrown from a bottle, and on turning around she saw a man in a cloak close by her, and at that moment she received a spot of vitriol on her neck, which gave her pain, when she exclaimed, 'there, that's the man that burns the girls with vitriol.' The man in the cloak walked quickly ofF, and the aid of officer Beard, of the Third ward, was procured, who took the accused into custody; and near the place where he threw the vitriol, a glass vial was found broken on the pavement, the cork of which was slit on one side, so that by a jerk of the bottle, the vitriol could be sprinkled out at pleasure. The cloak that the accused wore, was much burned with vitriol, near the pocket, where it is supposed the vitriol was kept. On being questioned, at the station house, for the reason of such outrageous conduct and cruelty, he replied to officers Beard and Noe, that there were three others concerned with him, and that they had been injured by the girls; but that last night was the first attempt he had made, and that through the temptation of the devil, or the effects of a drug which he had been taking, called chloroform, or ether,