Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/571

WELLS an address in London at the annual banquet of the Cobden club. In 1874 he was elected foreign associate of the French academy of political sciences, in the place of John Stuart Mill, deceased, and received the degree of D. 0. L. from Oxford university. He resides in Norwich, Conn., and was defeated in April, 1876, as a democratic candidate for congress. He has also published pamphlets on economi- cal subjects, and edited 16 volumes of the "An- nual of Scientific Discovery " (1849-'64). Mr. Wells was originally a protectionist, but his investigations in Europe in 1867, and study of the United States customs system, led him to become an advocate of free trade. WELLS, Horace, an American dentist, one of the claimants of the discovery of anesthesia, born in Hartford, Windsor co., Vt., Jan. 21, 1815, died in New York, Jan. 24, 1848. In 1834-'6 he studied and practised dentistry in Boston, and in 1836 opened an office in Hart- ford, Conn. Early in his practice he had con- sidered the possibility of administering some anaesthetic to prevent pain in dental opera- tions, and in 1840 the use of nitrous oxide gas occurred to him. On Dec. 10, 1844, Mr. G. Q. Colton lectured in Hartford and administered nitrous oxide gas to several persons, one of whom under its influence bruised himself se- verely by falling over some benches, but was unconscious of pain. Dr. Wells at once de- clared his belief " that a man, by taking that gas, could have a tooth extracted or a limb amputated, and not feel the pain." The next day he tested the matter in his own person, having a large molar tooth extracted without the slightest pain. He followed this by the successful administration of the gas in 12 or 15 cases of extraction of teeth during the au- tumn of 1844, and other dentists of the city successfully administered it in their practice. In December, 1844, he made known his dis- covery to Drs. Warren and Hayward, the dis- tinguished chemist Dr. C. T. Jackson, Dr. W. T. G. Morton, a dentist and a former pupil of his, and others in Boston. Dr. Warren in- vited him to address his medical class, but he was too diffident to make a very satisfactory impression. He extracted a tooth for a patient under anesthetic influence in the presence of the medical class ; but the experiment was not sufficiently successful to excite much interest in the subject. In October, 1846, when Dr. Morton applied for a patent (which he obtained in November) for anaesthetic agents, Dr. Wells remonstrated, stated the results of his own experiments, and adduced the testimony of the surgeons and physicians of Hartford to their success. In December of the same year he sailed for France, to lay his discovery be- fore the medical profession, and succeeded in convincing the medical society of Paris that he had made a valuable discovery. In the spring of 1847 he returned to America, and on March 30 published a pamphlet entitled " A History of the Discovery of the Application of Nitrous WELWITSCHIA 551 Oxide Gas, Ether, and other Vapors to Surgi- cal Operations," in which he stated the results of his experiments as above related, and sus- tained them by several affidavits. The contro- versy which followed impaired his already en- feebled health, and, with his experiments on himself of the effects of chloroform, produced mental aberration. He had removed to New York, where he was arrested on a charge of throwing vitriol on the clothes of women in the street ; and this causing an aggravation of his mental disorder, he committed suicide. In 1853, when an amendment to the congressional appropriation bill was offered providing for a grant of $100,000 to the "discoverer of prac- tical anesthesia," a report giving evidence in regard to Dr. Wells's claims was presented by Senator Truman Smith, who published it under the title of " An Examination of the Question of Anaesthesia" (Boston, 1859), and also "An Inquiry into the Origin of Modern Anaesthe- sia" (Hartford, 1867). A memorial statue of Wells has been erected in the public park of Hartford, Conn. (See ANAESTHETICS ; JACK- SON, CHARLES THOMAS ; and MOETON, WILLIAM THOMAS GREEN.) WELLS, Samuel Roberts, an American phrenol- ogist, born in West Hartford, Conn., April 4, 1820, died in New York, April 13, 1875. In 1844 he became a partner in the publishing house of O. S. and L. N. Fowler in New York, under the name of Fowlers and Wells, and in 1863 became sole proprietor. He accompanied L. N. Fowler in extended phrenological lec- turing tours through the United States, Can- ada, and Great Britain. From 1850 to 1862 he edited the " Water Cure Journal," from 1863 till his death the "Phrenological Jour- nal," and from 1865 the "Annual of Phre- nology and Physiognomy." His more impor- tant publications are: "New Physiognomy" (New York, 1866), " How to Eead Charac- ter " (1869), and "Wedlock" (1869). WELLS, William Charles, a British physician, born in Charleston S. C., in May, 1757, died in London, Aug. 28, 1817. He studied medicine at the university of Edinburgh, served as sur- geon to a Scotch regiment in Holland, and in 1785 established himself in London. In 1800 he became physician to St. Thomas's hospital. He is best known by an "Essay on Dew" (1814; new ed., 1866). (See DEW.) His auto- biography was published in 1818. WELLWOOD. See MONCREIFF. WELWITSCHIA. In 1863, Dr. Welwitsch dis- covered at Mossamedes, on the W. const of Af- rica, a remarkable plant which Dr. J. D. Hook- er described as WelwitscMa mirabilis. Unlike other plants in appearance, its reproductive organs place it among the Gnetacea, a small family closely related to the conifers. The plant is never over a foot high, while its trunk is sometimes 5 or 6 ft. in diameter ; the co- tyledons, or seed leaves, which in most plants soon perish, in this continue to grow, and, though the plant may live for more than a