Perverse pleasure
In Bristol, in 1799, young Humphry Davy noted in his diary the curious sensations he experienced
after inhaling nitrous oxide. Perhaps this experiment was one of his least hazardous since, in
the interests of possible therapeutic approaches to lung disease, he had already breathed such
dangerous compounds as nitrogen dioxide and its generator, nitric oxide. After a session with
nitrous oxide, Davy reported "a feeling analogous to that produced in the first stages of intoxication".
Among Humphry's friends at that time were the poets Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth, who
all felt a strange fascination with chemistry, emcouraged by Davy. They required little persuasion
to follow his example and sample nitrous oxide. As Southey wrote at the time: "Davy has actually
invented a pleasure for which language has no name ..."
Not everyone in the Davy circle shared this conclusion, and Peter Mark Roget, compiler of the
celebrated Thesaurus of 1852, admitted that nitrous oxide gave him no pleasant symptoms whatever.
However, over the following years the so-called "laughing gas frolic" became a popular feature
of public chemistry demonstrations.
There is little evidence that nitrous oxide has recently enjoyed any significant role in "recreational" drug-taking.
But a note has come from New Zealand, and is the subject of a letter by neurologists from Auckland
Hospital published in The Lancet for 19 April. A case of spinal cord combined degeneration
in a man aged 37 who presented with a three-week history of gait ataxia and paraesthesia of hands
and feet was found to be the result of inhaling nitrous oxide daily for six months. His serum
cobalamin content was low, and he recovered after ceasing to abuse the gas further and receiving
cobalamin. His vitamin deficiency was attributed to its irreversible binding to nitrous oxide.
The case prompted an investigation of the incidence of spinal cord disease in users of nitrous
oxide for recreational and non-medical purposes. Questionnaires were circulated to 1,782 first-year
undergraduates at Auckland University, studying engineering, law and health sciences. Questionnaires
were completed and returned by 1,374 students, of whom 780 were aware that nitrous oxide was
used for recreational purposes.
Of the 652 men, 96 used the gas, compared with 61 of 708 women. The users were aged 17 to 48
(mean age 20), compared with 16 to 50 (mean age 19) for non-users. There was a preponderance
among the users of white rather than Asian or Polynesian students.
The usual number of bulb containers inhaled in a session was two to five, with only a few using
more than 10. The sources of the bulbs of compressed gas were stated as local corner stores,
supermarkets and hardware stores. Most of the bulbs were intended for cream whipping in cookery.
It is significant that inhalers of nitrous oxide were more than five times as likely to think
it was safe than non-users, and users were more than 10 times more likely than non-users to use
at least one other recreational drug such as marijuana, cocaine or hallucinogens. They were also
more than eight times more likely to have witnessed the use of nitrous oxide by friends. Physicians
should be alerted to the possibility of nitrous oxide abuse when a young person presents with
symptoms of subacute myelopathy but appears otherwise healthy.
Back to Top
|
We rarely look upon the common stinging nettle, Urtica dioica, as an asset in our daily
affairs, but we are mistaken if we denounce it as a worthless weed and menace to our lives. I
note from a few paragraphs in my local newspaper that indeed the nettle could offer a profit
to those cultivating it seriously.
