Nitrous oxide inside the cells, by a process catalyzed by the enzyme nitrous oxide reductase. Nitrous oxide has significant global warming potential as a greenhouse gas. On a per-molecule basis, considered over a 100-year-period, nitrous oxide has 298 times the atmospheric heat-trapping ability of carbon dioxide (), however, because of its low concentration (less than 1/1000 of that of ), its contribution to the greenhouse effect is less than one-third that of carbon dioxide, and also less than water vapour and methane. On the other hand, since 38% or more of the entering the atmosphere is the result of human activity, and
Nitrous oxide gas-ether inhaler, to initiate the anaesthesia with nitrous oxide, before the administration of a more powerful anaesthetic. Colton's popularization of nitrous oxide led to its adoption by a number of less than reputable quacksalvers, who touted it as a cure for consumption, scrofula, catarrh, and other diseases of the blood, throat, and lungs. Nitrous oxide treatment was administered and licensed as a patent medicine by the likes of C. L. Blood and Jerome Harris in Boston and Charles E. Barney of Chicago. Reviewing various methods of producing nitrous oxde is published. Nitrous oxide is prepared on an industrial scale by