Editing Humphry Davy (section)

===Pneumatic Institution===
[[File:5 & 6 Dowry Square, Bristol.jpg|thumb|Site of the Pneumatic Institution, Bristol]]
On 2 October 1798, Davy joined the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol. It had been established to investigate the medical powers of [[factitious airs]] and gases (gases produced experimentally or artificially), and Davy was to superintend the various experiments. The arrangement agreed between Dr Beddoes and Davy was generous, and enabled Davy to give up all claims on his paternal property in favour of his mother. He did not intend to abandon the medical profession and was determined to study and graduate at Edinburgh, but he soon began to fill parts of the institution with voltaic batteries. While living in Bristol, Davy met the [[Earl of Durham]], who resided in the institution for his health. 

==== Anna Beddoes ====
Davy threw himself energetically into the work of the laboratory and formed a long romantic friendship with Mrs Anna Beddoes, the novelist [[Maria Edgeworth|Maria Edgeworth's]] sister, who acted as his guide on walks and other fine sights of the locality. The critic Maurice Hindle was the first to reveal that Davy and Anna had written poems for each other.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hindle |first1=Maurice |title=Nature, Power, and the Light of Suns: The Poetry of Humphry Davy |url=http://mauricehindle.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Nature-Power-the-Light-of-Suns-essay.pdf |access-date=4 May 2017 |archive-date=1 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801211604/http://mauricehindle.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Nature-Power-the-Light-of-Suns-essay.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Wahida Amin has transcribed and discussed a number of poems written between 1803 and 1808 to "Anna" and one to her infant child.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Amin |first1=Wahida |title=The Poetry and Science of Humphry Davy |journal=Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology |date=2022 |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=35–46 |doi=10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2021.09.011 |pmid=34702642 |url=http://usir.salford.ac.uk/30795/1/Wahida_Amin_-_The_Poetry_and_Science_of_Humphry_Davy_-_23.01.14.pdf |access-date=4 May 2017 |archive-date=16 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516235835/http://usir.salford.ac.uk/30795/1/Wahida_Amin_-_The_Poetry_and_Science_of_Humphry_Davy_-_23.01.14.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>  

==== Non-existence of caloric ====
In 1799, the first volume of the ''West-Country Collections'' was issued. Half consisted of Davy's essays ''On Heat, Light, and the Combinations of Light'', ''On Phos-oxygen and its Combinations'', and on the ''Theory of Respiration''. On 22 February 1799 Davy, wrote to Davies Giddy, "I am now as much convinced of the non-existence of [[Caloric theory|caloric]] as I am of the existence of light."  

==== Nitrous oxide ====
[[File:James Watt by Carl Frederik von Breda (cropped).jpg|thumb|193x193px|[[James Watt]] in 1792 by [[Carl Frederik von Breda]]]]
[[File:Robert Southey by Peter Vandyke.jpg|thumb|174x174px|Robert Southey]]
[[File:Anaesthesia exhibition, 1946 Wellcome M0009908.jpg|thumb|Sir Humphry Davy's ''Researches chemical and philosophical: chiefly concerning nitrous oxide'' (1800), pp. 556 and 557 (right), outlining potential anaesthetic properties of [[nitrous oxide]] in relieving pain during surgery]]
In 1799, Davy became increasingly well known due to his experiments with the physiological action of some gases, including laughing gas ([[nitrous oxide]]).<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hardman|first1=Jonathan G.|title=Oxford Textbook of Anaesthesia|date=2017|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=529}}</ref> The gas was first synthesised in 1772 by the [[natural philosopher]] and chemist [[Joseph Priestley]], who called it ''dephlogisticated nitrous air'' (see [[phlogiston]]).<ref name="Nitrous Oxide pioneers" >{{cite web
  |url=http://journals.lww.com/anesthesiology/citation/1941/09000/The_Development_of_Anesthesia.8.aspx
  |author=Keys TE
  |title=The Development of Anesthesia
  |work=Anesthesiology journal (Sep. 1941, vol. 2, is. 5, pp. 552–74)
  |year=1941
  |access-date=24 June 2010
|archive-date=12 January 2014
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140112122739/http://journals.lww.com/anesthesiology/citation/1941/09000/The_Development_of_Anesthesia.8.aspx
  |url-status=dead
  }}</ref> Priestley described his discovery in the book ''Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775)'', in which he described how to produce the preparation of "nitrous air diminished", by heating iron filings dampened with [[nitric acid]].<ref name="Joseph Priestley" >{{cite book
  |url=http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/nitrous/nitrous_journal1.shtml
  |author=Priestley J
  |title=Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
  |volume=2
  |at=sec. 3
  |via=Erowid.org
  |year=1776
  |access-date=24 June 2010
|archive-date=12 May 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220512190232/https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/nitrous/nitrous_journal1.shtml
  |url-status=live
  }}</ref> In another letter to Giddy, on 10 April, Davy informs him: "I made a discovery yesterday which proves how necessary it is to repeat experiments. The gaseous oxide of azote (the laughing gas) is perfectly respirable when pure. It is never deleterious but when it contains nitrous gas. I have found a mode of making it pure." He said that he breathed sixteen quarts of it for nearly seven minutes, and that it "absolutely intoxicated me."<ref name="DNB" />

In addition to Davy himself, his enthusiastic experimental subjects included his poet friends [[Robert Southey]] and [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]],<ref name="Jay2014">{{cite journal |last1=Jay |first1=Mike |date=8 August 2014 |title='O, Excellent Air Bag'p: Humphry Davy and Nitrous Oxide |url=http://publicdomainreview.org/2014/08/06/o-excellent-air-bag-humphry-davy-and-nitrous-oxide/ |journal=[[The Public Domain Review]] |publisher=[[Open Knowledge Foundation]] |volume=4 |issue=16 |access-date=6 August 2014 |archive-date=9 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140809212454/http://publicdomainreview.org/2014/08/06/o-excellent-air-bag-humphry-davy-and-nitrous-oxide/ |url-status=live }} {{Open access}}</ref><ref name="Roberts">{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=Jacob |date=2017 |title=High Times |url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/high-times |journal=Distillations |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=36–39 |access-date=22 March 2018 |archive-date=8 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230408075721/https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/high-times |url-status=live }}</ref> as well as Gregory Watt and James Watt, other close friends. James Watt built a portable gas chamber to facilitate Davy's experiments with the inhalation of nitrous oxide. At one point the gas  was combined with wine to judge its efficacy as a cure for [[hangover]] (his laboratory notebook indicated success). The gas was popular among Davy's friends and acquaintances, and he noted that it might be useful for performing surgical operations.<ref>In his 1800 ''Researches, Chemical and Philosophical'' (p. 556), Davy commented: "''As nitrous oxide in its extensive operation appears capable of destroying pain, it may probably be used with advantage during surgical operations in which no great effusion of blood takes place.''"</ref> [[Anesthetic]]s were not regularly used in medicine or dentistry until decades after Davy's death.<ref name="AOW" >{{cite book|last=Holmes |first=Richard|title=The Age of Wonder|publisher=Pantheon Books  |year=2008  |isbn=978-0-375-42222-5  |ref=Holmes, 2008, AOW}}</ref>

==== Carbon monoxide ====
In the gas experiments Davy ran considerable risks. His respiration of [[nitric oxide]] which may have combined with air in the mouth to form [[nitric acid]] (HNO<sub>3</sub>),<ref name="Jay2014" /> severely injured the mucous membrane, and in Davy's attempt to inhale four quarts of "pure [[Factitious airs|hydrocarbonate]]" gas in an experiment with [[carbon monoxide]] he "seemed sinking into annihilation." On being removed into the open air, Davy faintly articulated, "I do not think I shall die,"<ref name="Jay2014" /> but some hours elapsed before the painful symptoms ceased.<ref name="DNB" /> Davy was able to take his own pulse as he staggered out of the laboratory and into the garden, and he described it in his notes as "threadlike and beating with excessive quickness".

==== Early publications ====
During 1799, Beddoes and Davy published ''Contributions to physical and medical knowledge, principally from the west of England'' and ''Essays on heat, light, and the combinations of light, with a new theory of respiration. On the generation of oxygen gas, and the causes of the colors of organic beings.'' Their experimental work was poor, and the publications were harshly criticised.<ref name="Kenyon" /> In after years Davy regretted he had ever published these immature hypotheses, which he subsequently designated "the dreams of misemployed genius which the light of experiment and observation has never conducted to truth."<ref name="DNB" /> These criticisms, however, led Davy to refine and improve his experimental techniques,<ref name="Kenyon" /> spending his later time at the institution increasingly in experimentation. 

In December 1799 Davy visited London for the first time and extended his circle of friends. Davy features in the diary of William Godwin, with their first meeting recorded for 4 December 1799.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Godwin |first1=William |title=William Godwin's Diary |url=http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/people/DAV03.html |access-date=4 May 2017 |archive-date=2 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202204627/http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/people/DAV03.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1800, Davy informed Giddy that he had been "repeating the galvanic experiments with success" in the intervals of the experiments on the gases, which "almost incessantly occupied him from January to April." In 1800, Davy published his ''Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration'', and received a more positive response.<ref name="Kenyon" />

==== Proofreading ''Lyrical Ballads'' ====
[[File:William Wordsworth at 28 by William Shuter(cropped).jpg|thumb|223x223px|[[William Wordsworth]] at 28, by William Shuter (1798)]]
[[File:Samuel Taylor Coleridge (cropped)2.jpg|thumb|190x190px|[[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], by [[Peter Vandyke]] (1795)]]
[[William Wordsworth]] and Samuel Taylor Coleridge moved to the [[Lake District]] in 1800, and asked Davy to deal with the Bristol publishers of the ''[[Lyrical Ballads]]'', Biggs & Cottle. Coleridge asked Davy to proofread the second edition, the first to contain Wordsworth's "[[Preface to the Lyrical Ballads]]", in a letter dated 16 July 1800: "Will you be so kind as just to look over the sheets of the lyrical Ballads".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Coleridge|first1=Samuel Taylor|editor1-last=Griggs|editor1-first=E. L.|title=The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge|date=1956–1971|publisher=Clarendon Press|pages=vol 1, 606}}</ref> Wordsworth subsequently wrote to Davy on 29 July 1800, sending him the first manuscript sheet of poems and asking him specifically to correct: "any thing you find amiss in the punctuation a business at which I am ashamed to say I am no adept".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wordsworth|first1=William|editor1-last=de Selincourt|editor1-first=E.|title=The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth|url=https://archive.org/details/lettersofwilliam0006word|url-access=registration|date=1967|publisher=Clarendon Press|pages=vol. 1, 289}}</ref> Wordsworth was ill in the autumn of 1800 and slow in sending poems for the second edition; the volume appeared on 26 January 1801 even though it was dated 1800.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sharrock|first1=Roger|title=The Chemist and the Poet: Sir Humphry Davy and the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads|journal=Notes and Records of the Royal Society|date=1962|volume=17|pages=57–76|doi=10.1098/rsnr.1962.0006|s2cid=144053478}}</ref> While it is impossible to know whether Davy was at fault, this edition of the Lyrical Ballads contained many errors, including the poem [[Michael (poem)|"Michael"]] being left incomplete.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wordsworth|first1=William|title=Lyrical Ballads|date=1800|publisher=Biggs & Cottle|page=210}}</ref> In a personal notebook marked on the front cover "Clifton 1800 From August to Novr", Davy wrote his own Lyrical Ballad: "As I was walking up the street".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davy|first1=Humphry|title=Royal Institution HD 20c|pages=44, 46, 52}}</ref> Wordsworth features in Davy's poem as the recorder of ordinary lives in the line: "By poet Wordsworths Rymes" [sic].