Humphry Davy its potential anaesthetic properties in relieving pain during surgery. Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture "On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity" "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry." Davy was a baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), and Fellow of the Geological Society (FGS). He also invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He joked that his assistant Michael Faraday was his greatest discovery. Davy was born in Penzance, Cornwall in England on 17 December 1778. Davy's brother, John Davy, writes
Pneumatic Institution medical treatment would be carried out side by side. In March 1798, the curiosity of Humphry Davy was aroused by dramatic statements made in Samuel Latham Mitchell's "Remarks on the gaseous oxyd of nitrogen and its effects (1795)" that nitrous oxide had disastrous effects whether inhaled or in contact with the skin, that it was indeed the very "principle of contagion". Davy joined the "Pneumatic Institution" in 1798 as the laboratory operator, largely through the recommendation of Davies Giddy, and it was here that he undertook experiments that included himself inhaling nitrous oxide, which he called "laughing gas" for its