Pneumatic Institute

In 1798, convinced that some of the gases that chemists had recently discovered might prove to be useful in the treatment of tuberculosis, Thomas Beddoes, a former lecturer in chemistry at Oxford University, founded a Pneumatic Institute in Bristol with the intention of carrying out a series of experiments. On the recommendation of a mutual acquaintance, Beddoes hired Davy as a research assistant. 

Dr. Thomas Beddoes, 1760-1808. English physician and chemist. Founder of the Pneumatic Institution at Clifton for studying the therapeutic value of gases. Sir Humphry Davy became the superintendent of this institution at the age of twenty years... 

Davy, who experimented extensively upon himself with N2O, introduced it to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, James Watt (inventor of the steamboat), Peter Mark Roget (author of the famous Thesaurus), the potter Josiah Wedgwood (also later knighted) and other luminaries. Before long, patients were flocking to the Pneumatic Institution to be treated with... 

D. A. Stansfield and R. G. Stansfield, Dr Thomas Beddoes and James Watt Preparatory Work 1794-6 for the Bristol Pneumatic Institute) Medical History, 30 (1986), pp. 276-302 D. P. Miller and T. H. Levere, Inhale it and See The Collaboration between Thomas Beddoes and James Watt in Pneumatic Medicine) Ambix, 55 (2008), pp. 5-28. 

Several members of the Lunar Society were major contributors, the Wedgwoods more prominent than the Watts in this regard. See T. H. Levere, Dr. Thomas Beddoes and the Establishment of his Pneumatic Institution. A Tale of Three Presidents , Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 32 (1977), pp. 41-9. The most extraordinary funding, a bond for 10,000 pounds, came from James Keir in Bond for performance of Covenant. Dr Beddoes to Jas. Keir Wm. Reynolds Esqrs., 27 August 1793, emended to 16 April 1794, National Archives (Kew), MSC 104/41. Keir was also a staunch phlo-gistonist. 

Levere, T. H., Dr. Thomas Beddoes and the Establishment of his Pneumatic Institution. A Tale of Three Presidents , Notes and Records of the Royal Society ofLondon, 32 (1977), pp.41-9. 

In 1799, Thomas Beddoes initiated an effort to use nitrous oxide and other newly discovered gases in medicine by creating the Pneumatic Institution. This was a private laboratory funded by private philanthropy, with a major contribution by... 

Humphry Davy (1778-1829) was apprenticed to a surgeon in Penzance in 1795 but started reading Lavoisier s Elements of Chemistry and Nicholson s Dictionary of Chemistry, which still retained some phlogistic influences. His early investigations caught the attention of Thomas Beddoes and he was appointed to Bed-does s Pneumatic Institution in 1798. The Institution s purpose was to use inhal-able gases to cure diseases. 

Davy, Sir Humphry (i778-i829) British chemist, who studied gases at the Pneumatic Institute in Bristol, where he discovered the anaesthetic properties of dinitrogen oxide (nitrous oxide). He moved to the Royal Institution, London, in 1801 and five years later isolated potassium and sodium by electrolysis. He also prepared barium, boron, calcium, and strontium as well as proving that chlorine and iodine are elements. In 1816 he invented the Davy lamp. 

In 1798 Beddoes founded a Pneumatic Institution in Dowry Square, Hotwells, Bristol, where the medicinal properties of gases were to be examined. James Watt and Josiah Wedgwood were interested in it, and Davy was appointed there in October (seep. 32). Beddoes and Watt had previously written a book on the medicinal properties of gases. Beddoes noticed that venous blood assumes a scarlet colour when exposed to water gas (carbon monoxide), which is extremely deleterious. ... 

Griffiths, The Reputation of the Hotwells (Bristol) as a Health Resort, Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Journal, 1902, xx, 193 Miller, The Pneumatic Institute of Thomas Beddoes at Clifton, 1798, in Ann. Med. Hist., 1931, iii, 253. 

---