InvisibleEye
Bluelighter
The surprising history of hippy crack
People have been having fun with nitrous oxide – even in the name of science – virtually since its discovery more than 240 years ago.
By Linda Rodriguez
In January 2012, an attractive woman over 40 and that guy from That ‘70s Show were going through a rough patch (spoiler alert: it didn’t work out). Demi Moore, the woman in question, allegedly turned to the comfort of nitrous oxide, also called “whip-its,” “whippits,” “whippets,” “nossies,” “hippy crack,” and, of course, “laughing gas.”
Moore’s experience with nitrous oxide was not, however, the brief, weightless euphoria that most people report: She collapsed with seizure-like symptoms and was rushed to the hospital. Her subsequent stint in rehab – for eating disorder issues and substance abuse – could have sparked a nationwide soul-searching about nitrous oxide and other inhalants abuse; it mostly just sparked a bunch of snarky headlines.
Nitrous oxide gas is used to make cars go faster and whip cream into a delicious fluff; therapeutic nitrous oxide, surprisingly sweet-tasting, is used in dental procedures and for pain relief – or just a welcome distraction – during childbirth. Recreationally, nitrous oxide is huffed by the cool kids from brightly-colored balloons at festivals and bored teenagers straight from Reddi-Wip canisters in the supermarket aisle; by people with access to nitrous tanks, such as dentists or dental hygienists; by – purportedly – Hollywood actresses and wayward British princes; and, although this tends to go underreported, by people with other drug addiction or psychological issues.
But people have been having fun with nitrous oxide – even in the name of science – virtually since its discovery more than 240 years ago. In fact, it’s only been the last 100 years or so that nitrous oxide has been more often used for “legit” purposes.
Nitrous oxide was first synthesized in 1772 by Joseph Priestly, one of Britain’s foremost chemists and the man who invented soda water; he allowed nitric oxide (NO) to stand in contact with iron filings and water, yielding the gas N20. Priestly was a brilliant scientist, but also an Enlightenment thinker whose staunch belief that scientific inquiry would soon have everything, including dated institutions such as monarchy, sorted eventually landed him in de facto exile in America (this was after a mob of hundreds tore apart his lab and tried to burn down his house in 1791). Priestly’s leaving didn’t, however, mean the end of nitrous oxide investigations in Britain – although it wouldn’t be for another 27 years until someone really looked at nitrous oxide.
That someone was Humphry Davy, a fearless scientific prodigy who’d taught himself French at the age of 14 – so that he could read chemistry books in French. “He was an incredible character, and incredible personality…. he was kind of pure genius. Unbelievably intense, unbelievably brilliant and incredibly ambitious,” explained Mike Jay, author of The Atmosphere of Heaven, an account of scientific investigation into gases in the late 18th century.
Davy grew up in Penzance, a small port town on the Cornish coast; no one, Jay said, had ever come from Penzance. Blessed with an insatiable curiosity coupled with what was likely an eidetic memory, Davy grew up devising his own scientific experiments and making lab equipment out of whatever he had to hand – seaweed bladders, an enema syringe washed ashore after a shipwreck, the insides of a clock. In 1798, at age 18, he became a lab assistant at the Pneumatic Institute in Hotwells, a spa town in decline outside of Bristol, UK. The Pneumatic Institute was the brainchild of Thomas Beddoes, an eccentric, energetic polymath whose primary interest was medicine; it was a medical research facility whose aim was to investigate possible therapeutic uses of newly-discovered gases and chemicals to treat diseases of the lung that were spreading in the increasingly insalubrious air of industrialized Britain. Beddoes had hoped for live patients and he got them in their dozens, although not just consumptives, but people suffering from paralysis, palsy, and syphilis as well.
In April of 1799, Davy, in the Institute’s laboratory and in between administering nitric acid to syphilitic sores, began to investigate nitrous oxide. He started by synthesizing the gas and promptly inhaling it himself. When he didn’t die – and actually seemed quite invigorated by the experience – he and Beddoes began administering it to patients. They started with a 26-year-old man who, “after a course of excessive debauchery,” was unable to move one side of his body. After inhaling the gas, the man soon regained mobility in his arm; Davy and Beddoes also noted that he and other patients seemed to look forward to their “dose of air” and “the pleasure it gave them.”
By the summer, Davy had begun a rigorous course of self-experimentation, taking detailed notes not only the physical effects of nitrous oxide inhalation on his blood pressure or his body temperature, but also on his conscious state – how and what he was feeling when he took the gas. And he was feeling pretty phenomenal: Davy admitted that he was often breathing the gas just “for the sake of enjoyment.” On full moon nights that summer, Jay said, Davy would fill up a bag of gas, grab his notebook, and get high up on Avon Gorge, overlooking the river Avon. His consumption was almost to the point of compulsion – he wrote that just seeing other people breathe was enough to make him want the gas. [...]
Continued here: http://boingboing.net/2015/01/28/the-surprising-history-of-hipp.html
People have been having fun with nitrous oxide – even in the name of science – virtually since its discovery more than 240 years ago.
By Linda Rodriguez
In January 2012, an attractive woman over 40 and that guy from That ‘70s Show were going through a rough patch (spoiler alert: it didn’t work out). Demi Moore, the woman in question, allegedly turned to the comfort of nitrous oxide, also called “whip-its,” “whippits,” “whippets,” “nossies,” “hippy crack,” and, of course, “laughing gas.”
Moore’s experience with nitrous oxide was not, however, the brief, weightless euphoria that most people report: She collapsed with seizure-like symptoms and was rushed to the hospital. Her subsequent stint in rehab – for eating disorder issues and substance abuse – could have sparked a nationwide soul-searching about nitrous oxide and other inhalants abuse; it mostly just sparked a bunch of snarky headlines.
Nitrous oxide gas is used to make cars go faster and whip cream into a delicious fluff; therapeutic nitrous oxide, surprisingly sweet-tasting, is used in dental procedures and for pain relief – or just a welcome distraction – during childbirth. Recreationally, nitrous oxide is huffed by the cool kids from brightly-colored balloons at festivals and bored teenagers straight from Reddi-Wip canisters in the supermarket aisle; by people with access to nitrous tanks, such as dentists or dental hygienists; by – purportedly – Hollywood actresses and wayward British princes; and, although this tends to go underreported, by people with other drug addiction or psychological issues.
But people have been having fun with nitrous oxide – even in the name of science – virtually since its discovery more than 240 years ago. In fact, it’s only been the last 100 years or so that nitrous oxide has been more often used for “legit” purposes.
Nitrous oxide was first synthesized in 1772 by Joseph Priestly, one of Britain’s foremost chemists and the man who invented soda water; he allowed nitric oxide (NO) to stand in contact with iron filings and water, yielding the gas N20. Priestly was a brilliant scientist, but also an Enlightenment thinker whose staunch belief that scientific inquiry would soon have everything, including dated institutions such as monarchy, sorted eventually landed him in de facto exile in America (this was after a mob of hundreds tore apart his lab and tried to burn down his house in 1791). Priestly’s leaving didn’t, however, mean the end of nitrous oxide investigations in Britain – although it wouldn’t be for another 27 years until someone really looked at nitrous oxide.
That someone was Humphry Davy, a fearless scientific prodigy who’d taught himself French at the age of 14 – so that he could read chemistry books in French. “He was an incredible character, and incredible personality…. he was kind of pure genius. Unbelievably intense, unbelievably brilliant and incredibly ambitious,” explained Mike Jay, author of The Atmosphere of Heaven, an account of scientific investigation into gases in the late 18th century.
Davy grew up in Penzance, a small port town on the Cornish coast; no one, Jay said, had ever come from Penzance. Blessed with an insatiable curiosity coupled with what was likely an eidetic memory, Davy grew up devising his own scientific experiments and making lab equipment out of whatever he had to hand – seaweed bladders, an enema syringe washed ashore after a shipwreck, the insides of a clock. In 1798, at age 18, he became a lab assistant at the Pneumatic Institute in Hotwells, a spa town in decline outside of Bristol, UK. The Pneumatic Institute was the brainchild of Thomas Beddoes, an eccentric, energetic polymath whose primary interest was medicine; it was a medical research facility whose aim was to investigate possible therapeutic uses of newly-discovered gases and chemicals to treat diseases of the lung that were spreading in the increasingly insalubrious air of industrialized Britain. Beddoes had hoped for live patients and he got them in their dozens, although not just consumptives, but people suffering from paralysis, palsy, and syphilis as well.
In April of 1799, Davy, in the Institute’s laboratory and in between administering nitric acid to syphilitic sores, began to investigate nitrous oxide. He started by synthesizing the gas and promptly inhaling it himself. When he didn’t die – and actually seemed quite invigorated by the experience – he and Beddoes began administering it to patients. They started with a 26-year-old man who, “after a course of excessive debauchery,” was unable to move one side of his body. After inhaling the gas, the man soon regained mobility in his arm; Davy and Beddoes also noted that he and other patients seemed to look forward to their “dose of air” and “the pleasure it gave them.”
By the summer, Davy had begun a rigorous course of self-experimentation, taking detailed notes not only the physical effects of nitrous oxide inhalation on his blood pressure or his body temperature, but also on his conscious state – how and what he was feeling when he took the gas. And he was feeling pretty phenomenal: Davy admitted that he was often breathing the gas just “for the sake of enjoyment.” On full moon nights that summer, Jay said, Davy would fill up a bag of gas, grab his notebook, and get high up on Avon Gorge, overlooking the river Avon. His consumption was almost to the point of compulsion – he wrote that just seeing other people breathe was enough to make him want the gas. [...]
Continued here: http://boingboing.net/2015/01/28/the-surprising-history-of-hipp.html
