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
Humphry Davy instructions in chemistry. Davy was acquainted with the Wedgwood family, who spent a winter at Penzance. Thomas Beddoes and John Hailstone were engaged in a geological controversy on the rival merits of the Plutonian and Neptunist hypotheses. They travelled together to examine the Cornish coast accompanied by Davies Gilbert and made Davy's acquaintance. Beddoes, who had established at Bristol a 'Pneumatic Institution,' needed an assistant to superintend the laboratory. Gilbert recommended Davy, and in 1798 Gregory Watt showed Beddoes the "Young man's Researches on Heat and Light", which were subsequently published by him in the first volume of "West-Country Contributions".