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 effects. Davy was to describe his work at the Institution in his "Researches, chemical and philosophical, chiefly concerning nitrous oxide, or dephlogisticated nitrous air, and its respiration" (London, Murray, 1800). This and other gases were administered, without charge, to willing subjects, particularly those with diseases considered to be incurable at the time. Although the initial aim had been to treat patients with tuberculosis, most of the patients treated suffered from some form of paralysis. James Watt supported the "Institution" because conventional methods had failed to help against his son's pulmonary tuberculosis (known as "consumption" at the time), which had previously