The Providence Journal, And Town And Country Advertiser

Domestic Intelligence.

PHILADELPHIA, April 8.

Medical Information.

Dr. Beddoes has just put in operation his long projected and much talked of Medical Pneumatic Institution. The first-fruits are curious, and interesting enough. He hastens to the press, on the spur of the moment, with a small pamphlet, to communicate the results of some experiments made by his assistant, Mr. Davy, and himself, on what was originally named by its discoverer, Dr. Priestley, Dephlogisticated Nitrous Air. The gas was first breathed cautiously in a diluted state; then more boldly, on finding no mischief to result, and finally in a state perfectly pure. The most extraordinary effects ensued. Giddiness, sense of fullness in the head, and other feelings of incident intoxication were first perceived; then followed wild and uncontrollable gesticulations, extravagant and tumultuous joys, bliss, rapture and ecstasy, more exquisite than poetry ever imagined, or fable ever feigned. Many persons of great literary distinction, besides Dr. Beddoes and Mr. Davy, were the subjects of the experiments. Some compared their sensations of muscular vigour and alertness to that which might enable them to mount aloft in the air like a balloon. Mr. Southey, the celebrated poet, after inhaling this gas for some time, exclaimed in a delicious paroxysm of enjoyment, that "the atmosphere of the highest of all possible heavens must consist of this air." Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld (the children's friend) among other very distinguished persons, participated in these experiments. Some of them, after feeling all the most delicious transports of the first experiments in their subsequent trials, enjoyed a very fascinating pleasure of a more sedate and tranquil kind; others still continued to experience all the force and tumult of their primitive raptures. It is remarkable that no depression, fatigue or debility followed those high sensations, but that, on the contrary, more activity or alertness than usual remained for some time. Dr. Beddoes conjectures that the breathing of this gas might enable a person to dispense with sleep for a considerable time; as he found, after using it, a singular degree of refreshment from very diminished portions of sleep, and that he awoke in the morning with all the propensity to active motions observed at the puerile age. This gas has been employed with remarkable success at the Pneumatic Institution, in case of palsy. Dr. B. imagines this remedy will be particularly adapted to the relief of persons whose constitutions have been worn out by debauchery and intemperance, and to obviate and relieve the infirmities of old age. He supposes the efficacy of this gas to depend upon its oxygen being rendered more active by its combination with a portion of azotic matter.