Our good friend (and Darklore contributor) Mike Jay has just released a fascinating new book, The Atmosphere of Heaven (available from Amazon US and UK), which explores the hidden history of the discovery of nitrous oxide:
At the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol, England, founded in the closing years of the eighteenth century, dramatic experiments with gases precipitated a revolution not only in scientific medicine but also in the modern mind.
Propelled by the energy of maverick doctor Thomas Beddoes, the Institution was both laboratory and hospital—the first example of a medical research institution. But when its researchers discovered the mind-altering properties of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, their experiments devolved into a pioneering exploration of consciousness, with far-reaching and unforeseen effects.
In this fast-paced and dramatic narrative, Mike Jay tells the story of Dr. Beddoes and the brilliant circle who surrounded him: Erasmus Darwin and the Lunar Society, who supported his experiments; Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, who were inspired by his ideas; James Watt, who designed and built his laboratory; Thomas Wedgwood, the visionary heir to the pottery dynasty, who funded it; and Beddoes’ dazzling young chemistry assistant, Humphry Davy, who tested nitrous oxide to its limits with legendary results.
The Atmosphere of Heaven is a riveting account of the chaotic rise and fall of the Institution, and reveals for the first time its crucial influence – on modern drug culture, attitudes toward objective and subjective knowledge, the development of anaesthetic surgery, and the birth of the Romantic movement.
For an introduction to the topic, make sure you check out an article Mike’s just written for the Boston Globe, titled The Day Pain Died“. And for more of his wonderful historical investigations, see Mike’s articles in Darklore (all three of which are available as free PDF downloads from the site, you lucky sods!) on topics as varied as the origins of the Illuminati, psychedelic usage in ancient America, and Sherlock Holmes’ cocaine habit.
