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How Nitrous Oxide Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Won wa hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:15
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark Wal There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant Wall,
0:19
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry And this is stuff you should wall
0:23
Speaker 1: Wall Wall Wall the podcast you're making. I'm giggling like
0:28
Speaker 1: a schoolgirl. You're making a I think I just topped
0:32
Speaker 1: to school girl. One echo e reverbi uh sound. So
0:35
Speaker 1: this could only be about one thing. Nature's ox siden
0:39
Speaker 1: that's right, and two oh, that's right. Hippie Crack, the
0:42
Speaker 1: Bitter Mistress, Whippets, jazz Juice, Yeah, why not? I mean
0:49
Speaker 1: those are the street names that has medical efforts. Some
0:52
Speaker 1: of those are made up. Yeah, we're gonna cover the
0:55
Speaker 1: whole gamut here. Yeah, medical use and recreational use dangers.
1:00
Speaker 1: We're gonna do an episode on nitrous ox side. That's right.
1:03
Speaker 1: Um so, Chuck, we should probably start not at the beginning,
1:08
Speaker 1: but not at the end, somewhere in the middle, because
1:11
Speaker 1: the history of nitrous ox side is extraordinarily interesting. Just
1:15
Speaker 1: the history. Yeah, we're gonna tell it out of order
1:17
Speaker 1: like pulp fiction. That's right. See if you can recognize
1:21
Speaker 1: characters from other movies like Vincent vegas brother. Yeah, Michael
1:27
Speaker 1: Madison was Vincent Vega's brother. Did you know that? Yeah, oh,
1:30
Speaker 1: you knew that. I did. Well. Well, I don't think
1:33
Speaker 1: that's not most heavily guarded secrets. Did you notice that
1:37
Speaker 1: red Apple cigarettes make an appearance in more than just
1:39
Speaker 1: pulp ficture? I'm done. Did you notice that Quentin Tarantino
1:43
Speaker 1: likes to write two hundred and seventy five page scripts. Yeah,
1:47
Speaker 1: but that's nothing compared to the five hundred and eighty
1:51
Speaker 1: page tone that Humphrey Davy wrote on nitros ox side.
1:55
Speaker 1: Very nice little segue. All right, So we're not even
1:57
Speaker 1: talking about Humphrey Davy yet, he's at the beginning. He's
1:59
Speaker 1: not even at the beginning, but he's towards the beginning.
2:01
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk instead about the sad saga of one
2:04
Speaker 1: Dr Horace Wells d d S very sad. Yeah. So
2:08
Speaker 1: Dr Horace Wells was a dentist in New Haven, Connecticut.
2:12
Speaker 1: I believe in the eighteen forties. What is dds is
2:16
Speaker 1: that Dennis Dennis Cee? Is that what that means? That's
2:20
Speaker 1: what I've always assumed it was. And at this point
2:22
Speaker 1: everyone knows. We just make most of the stuff we
2:24
Speaker 1: stay up. That's right. Uh, so you're right, sir. He
2:27
Speaker 1: was a dentist in Hotford, Connecticut. It was Hartford, I said,
2:30
Speaker 1: new Haven. Uh what's the difference, as long as the
2:34
Speaker 1: thing Connecticut. And this was in the eighteen thirties and uh,
2:40
Speaker 1: oh man really yeah, maybe we should start over. Wow
2:44
Speaker 1: wow wow, all right. Uh. He was a dnnist in
2:47
Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties, and he recognized something that all dennist
2:50
Speaker 1: of the day recognized, which is, everyone hates your guts
2:54
Speaker 1: because you're causing excruciating amounts of pain on a daily
2:59
Speaker 1: basis to your patients. Yeah. It's it's like, here's some whiskey,
3:02
Speaker 1: Maybe bite on this broomstick. Well, actually can't do that
3:05
Speaker 1: because you're doing dynastry. You can't even do that. Yeah,
3:08
Speaker 1: you ever heard the term it's like pulling teeth. That's
3:11
Speaker 1: where it comes from, right, And and so Horace wells
3:14
Speaker 1: dds dentist. Dentist. See. Uh. He felt pretty bad about
3:19
Speaker 1: this enough so that um he went to a traveling
3:22
Speaker 1: exhibition once that came through town. And this was in
3:25
Speaker 1: the eighteen forties, and it was staged by a man
3:28
Speaker 1: named h A. Gardener Colton. That's a great name, Gardner
3:32
Speaker 1: Quincy Colton sounds like a rich kid from Texas or yeah,
3:37
Speaker 1: or like a side show showman, which is what he was, right.
3:40
Speaker 1: And he actually was in medical school for a little while.
3:43
Speaker 1: And while he was in med school he was introduced
3:45
Speaker 1: to the wonders of huffing nitrous oxide. And he said,
3:50
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do medical school anymore. I's gonna drop
3:53
Speaker 1: out and hit the road with the old hippie crack.
3:56
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, and show people what's what. And so at
3:59
Speaker 1: one of these inmonstrations in Hartford and sometime in the forties, um,
4:04
Speaker 1: he saw Colton give this demo and and I guess
4:08
Speaker 1: right afterwards, saw a man run into the stage or
4:11
Speaker 1: fell off the stage and hurt his leg, and Wells
4:15
Speaker 1: went over. I was like, are you okay? And the
4:17
Speaker 1: guys like, what are you talking about? And he said
4:19
Speaker 1: the bonus sticking out of your legs, sir, And he's like,
4:21
Speaker 1: what's the bone? Now? It wasn't that bad, but he
4:25
Speaker 1: did say interesting, Um, here's what I'll do. I'll get
4:29
Speaker 1: Colton to come into my office tomorrow and my buddy
4:33
Speaker 1: colleague John Riggs, I'll get Colton to administer the gas,
4:37
Speaker 1: and I'll get Rigs to pull one of my teeth,
4:40
Speaker 1: and uh, he did so, and he said, I did
4:43
Speaker 1: not feel so much as the prick of a pin.
4:45
Speaker 1: And he said, I think we're onto something here, something
4:48
Speaker 1: called pain free dentistry a k a. Please stop painting me, right,
4:52
Speaker 1: And so Wells followed in this really great tradition that
4:56
Speaker 1: really stopped and I guess probably about the twentieth century
5:00
Speaker 1: of the late twentieth century of where if you're a scientist,
5:03
Speaker 1: you or your own first human test subject. People still
5:06
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, apparently in um in Marvel Comics they do.
5:11
Speaker 1: One of the greatest articles I've ever read in any
5:13
Speaker 1: magazine anywhere in all time throughout the universe in perpetuity
5:18
Speaker 1: is called blood Spore, and it was about the murder
5:21
Speaker 1: of a mycologist scientists who studies mushrooms, and um it's
5:27
Speaker 1: really really interesting. There's all sorts of weird like cold
5:30
Speaker 1: case stuff to it, but there's also like an under
5:33
Speaker 1: underlying thread where if you're a mycologist and you discover
5:36
Speaker 1: a mushroom, you try it out on yourself, Like that's
5:40
Speaker 1: just what they do still today. I think that you
5:42
Speaker 1: try it on yourself after you fed it to your children,
5:45
Speaker 1: just to see what happens. Maybe your dog first, and
5:48
Speaker 1: then you try it on you. Man. I'll bet those
5:50
Speaker 1: those mycologist dogs were bandanas then are super laid back.
5:54
Speaker 1: You know. Uh, what's the name of the article? I
5:57
Speaker 1: want to check that blood spore is in Harper's which
6:00
Speaker 1: means it's behind a paywall. But gotcha, it's It's almost
6:04
Speaker 1: worth a year's subscription just for that one. And Harper's
6:07
Speaker 1: archives are definitely full of good articles, agreed. So Wells
6:12
Speaker 1: was pretty happy because he knew he was onto something there.
6:15
Speaker 1: And he said he performed um, just dental procedures for
6:20
Speaker 1: the next uh a few weeks and months on dozens
6:23
Speaker 1: of patients, and they were all like, this is great,
6:25
Speaker 1: it's great. Didn't feel a thing, doc, And he said,
6:27
Speaker 1: I think I'm ready. I wanna present this to some
6:29
Speaker 1: Harvard medical students in the establishment. And he got on
6:33
Speaker 1: stage and uh, he went to pull a tooth and
6:37
Speaker 1: the guy started screaming. Yeah. So like after all of
6:40
Speaker 1: these tests, successful tests, when he finally gets up the
6:44
Speaker 1: gumpchen to give a successful demonstration, it goes as bad
6:48
Speaker 1: as it could and it's actually called the Humbug affair
6:51
Speaker 1: because the medical students shouted humbug and what was the
6:55
Speaker 1: other swindler at him, and he's like, no, I'm not,
6:59
Speaker 1: I'm not, and I swear this is for real, I
7:01
Speaker 1: really care about my patients. In the room started spinning
7:04
Speaker 1: and he fell over and when he came to, he
7:06
Speaker 1: was on skid row, hooked on chloroform and nitrous oxide. Yeah.
7:10
Speaker 1: He later went on to say that, um, although wait,
7:12
Speaker 1: let me let me clarify, you technically can't get hooked
7:16
Speaker 1: on nitrous ox side, but he was huffing a lot
7:18
Speaker 1: of nitrous oxide, right. Uh. Well, although, Davy, well we'll
7:22
Speaker 1: get to that be a spoiler. He went on to
7:25
Speaker 1: say that he thought that he had probably withdrawn too
7:28
Speaker 1: much too soon from the guy, because, as we'll go
7:32
Speaker 1: on to talk about here in a little bit, um,
7:35
Speaker 1: when you stopped breathing in nitris, you go back to
7:37
Speaker 1: normal pretty quickly, very quickly. So he kind of just aired.
7:40
Speaker 1: I don't know, I would have gone a little bit
7:42
Speaker 1: overboard for the demo. Sure, on the same side, I
7:44
Speaker 1: would have been like ninety night pal, but um, yeah,
7:48
Speaker 1: he he became well, like you said, not hooked, but
7:52
Speaker 1: a heavy user of ether and chloroform. Oh yes, ether
7:56
Speaker 1: um in the on his thirty third birthday, he was
8:00
Speaker 1: I think awaiting arrival of his He ended up living alone,
8:03
Speaker 1: moved and was waiting on his wife and kid to
8:06
Speaker 1: come to London. But by this time he'd sunk into
8:08
Speaker 1: like a terrible depression, right and uh, he was alone
8:13
Speaker 1: because his family wasn't able to join him yet. And
8:15
Speaker 1: he flipped out on his thirty third birthday, went out
8:18
Speaker 1: on the street and throw acid on these two women.
8:20
Speaker 1: Flipped out after going on like a chloroform vendor. Yeah,
8:24
Speaker 1: and went to prison, and in prison he sort of reached.
8:28
Speaker 1: He kept doing chloroform and ether in prison because I
8:30
Speaker 1: guess you could get it and hit rock bottom and
8:36
Speaker 1: under an ether, Binge slashed his femoral artery in his
8:40
Speaker 1: thigh died. Well. Yeah, he talked to the guard into
8:44
Speaker 1: escorting him home to get his shaving kit. And at
8:47
Speaker 1: home it's like I need a big razor. I think
8:50
Speaker 1: at home or maybe back. If he's getting chloroform in prison,
8:52
Speaker 1: it could have been there. He huffed the dose of
8:55
Speaker 1: chloroform to anesthetize himself and then he cut his femoral
8:59
Speaker 1: artery to the end. He was a believer in anesthesia,
9:04
Speaker 1: I guess so. However, um years later, in eighteen sixty four,
9:08
Speaker 1: he was he was recognized by the ADA, the American
9:11
Speaker 1: Dental Association as a pioneer of using uh not ether
9:18
Speaker 1: But what are we talking about? Two in dentistry in two? Oh? Yeah,
9:22
Speaker 1: And do you know who got him to that point? Well, yeah,
9:27
Speaker 1: Gardner Colton's He set up practice as a dentist, after all,
9:32
Speaker 1: and it was his successful demonstrations that got the a
9:35
Speaker 1: DA on board. So now we need to go back
9:37
Speaker 1: in time. Yeah, even further back. That's sort of the middle.
9:41
Speaker 1: So we're in the way back machine. I guess we
9:46
Speaker 1: didn't point out where we're in there already. I think
9:48
Speaker 1: everyone just assumed. And we go back seventy years previous
9:52
Speaker 1: to Horace Wells, to a guy named Jason Priestley. Dylan, sorry, no, Brandon,
10:00
Speaker 1: Joseph Priestley, that guy Jason Priestly's dad, Yeah, or great great, great, great,
10:05
Speaker 1: great great great grandfather. I don't think there was any relation. Actually,
10:08
Speaker 1: you don't know, you're right. Joseph Priestly. He was an Englishman,
10:15
Speaker 1: and he begins like Priestley, that's right. And he was
10:19
Speaker 1: a big he was an enlightened thinker, and he was
10:23
Speaker 1: a contemporary Ben Franklin, and he was a smart guy
10:26
Speaker 1: on a lot of different subjects. He was a polyglot. Yeah,
10:30
Speaker 1: that's a good word for it. Cool guy. And no,
10:32
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, he's a poly math. A polyglot as somebody
10:36
Speaker 1: speaks a bunch of different languages. Poly math is somebody
10:38
Speaker 1: who's in a bunch of different fields. Yeah. Probably. He
10:43
Speaker 1: was an enlightenment guy for sure. Uh. And in the
10:45
Speaker 1: seventeen seventies he was studying a love I think we
10:48
Speaker 1: should go back to using only old terminology because what
10:51
Speaker 1: they called gases back then was the study of the airs,
10:56
Speaker 1: which is great, totally makes sense. Gasses and to shoot
11:00
Speaker 1: a duck. And he actually lived next to a brewery,
11:05
Speaker 1: so he had a lot of access to CEO two
11:07
Speaker 1: and very smartly created a device called the pneumatic trough
11:12
Speaker 1: to isolate gases, collect and isolate these gases, and he
11:15
Speaker 1: was good at it so well. A guy named Steven
11:17
Speaker 1: Hales actually created the first pneumatic trough, which is actually
11:21
Speaker 1: pretty simple invention. It's neat though, so like you have
11:25
Speaker 1: a tube Let's say you have a fire and you
11:27
Speaker 1: want to collect carbon monoxide from it. You basically have
11:30
Speaker 1: a tube that collects it the smoke that's coming off
11:33
Speaker 1: of it, and the tube goes into a vat of
11:36
Speaker 1: water and up into a like a glass bell jar
11:42
Speaker 1: that's upside down. It's inverted so that there's there's air
11:45
Speaker 1: at the top. I think the principle is similar. And
11:48
Speaker 1: so the smoke goes into the water and then goes
11:50
Speaker 1: up and is filtered through the water. And what the
11:53
Speaker 1: gas you have on the other end is whatever you're
11:56
Speaker 1: looking for, or a bunch of different gases that you
11:58
Speaker 1: can study and pure form, simple, pistically beautiful. It is
12:01
Speaker 1: so um priestly had his own that he made the
12:04
Speaker 1: pneumatic trough. And this guy actually isolated eight different gases
12:10
Speaker 1: or airs for the first time, which apparently is a record. Still, yeah,
12:14
Speaker 1: I don't know what the record is, like most gases
12:16
Speaker 1: discovered in a single lifetime. Okay, I guess all right,
12:21
Speaker 1: that's good it is. I don't know that there's any
12:24
Speaker 1: more gases to discover. I wonder, and who studies that
12:28
Speaker 1: kind of thing? What do you call somebody who studies gases?
12:31
Speaker 1: An Arologists analysis. Well, if you do that right into us,
12:36
Speaker 1: because I want to know all about that and if
12:38
Speaker 1: there's if you guys think there's any gases left to
12:40
Speaker 1: be discovered here on earth. Agreed. Alright, let's take a
12:44
Speaker 1: break before we talk about Humphrey Davy because he's this
12:47
Speaker 1: is where the story gets really good. That was quite
13:08
Speaker 1: a break. Yeah, I can't believe you broke that lamp.
13:11
Speaker 1: That was upset, all right, Humphrey Davy. Uh, he worked
13:17
Speaker 1: at a place called the Neumatic Institute, and they used
13:22
Speaker 1: gases as for therapy, curative therapies, and he got into
13:28
Speaker 1: using them on himself, which, like you said, was sort
13:30
Speaker 1: of the thing to do at the time, you experiment
13:32
Speaker 1: on yourself, right. Plus, as the author of this Rolling
13:35
Speaker 1: Stone article from n that I read pointed out, Yeah,
13:39
Speaker 1: he was also like twenty at the time, so it
13:41
Speaker 1: totally makes sense that he would like half a bunch
13:44
Speaker 1: of nitrous ocksides and then and call it science, right,
13:48
Speaker 1: But he I mean, it really was science. So this
13:50
Speaker 1: guy apparently had tried it a few times before, but
13:55
Speaker 1: then his big experiment, his first huge experiment was on
13:58
Speaker 1: Boxing Day of seventeen nine d nine, right, which is
14:01
Speaker 1: December it's very important that you remember December. Why is
14:07
Speaker 1: it important, Well, it was boxing Day, but it was
14:11
Speaker 1: also literally box day because Humphrey Davy got into a
14:15
Speaker 1: box and had some guy pump in. Was it like
14:19
Speaker 1: twenty courts? Yeah, he's he stepped into a seal box
14:22
Speaker 1: and he requested a physician, like a real doctor, to
14:26
Speaker 1: release twenty courts because otherwise it just be crazy. Right,
14:31
Speaker 1: He released twenty quarts of nitrous oxide every five minutes
14:35
Speaker 1: as long as I'm conscious. That must have been the
14:38
Speaker 1: safe word is I'm passed out. And he went for
14:41
Speaker 1: an hour and fifteen minutes like that in this box,
14:45
Speaker 1: and then he stepped out and apparently grabbed some oil
14:48
Speaker 1: skins or also called gas bags, and um huffed another
14:53
Speaker 1: twenty courts right afterward. And they're like, how are you
14:57
Speaker 1: still standing? And he goes, I'm not i' he basically did.
15:01
Speaker 1: He had a great disposition to laugh, which eventually is
15:05
Speaker 1: where laughing gas would come from. Uh. He talked about
15:09
Speaker 1: shining packets of light and energy. He talked about objects
15:13
Speaker 1: dazzling in their intensity and sounds amplified into a cacophony
15:17
Speaker 1: that echoed through infinite space, and losing all connection to
15:21
Speaker 1: external things. It's pretty cool. So we there's this really
15:24
Speaker 1: great article on the public domain review and it's called
15:27
Speaker 1: oh excellent, gas bag, gas bag or airbag, airbag, air bag,
15:32
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, which is a quote from a poet that
15:35
Speaker 1: was friends with Humphrey Debut, who became the Poet Laureate
15:37
Speaker 1: of Great Britain. Later on Um and the the Um,
15:43
Speaker 1: the author really does a good job of describing what
15:46
Speaker 1: nitrous oxide does to you, almost suspiciously good. So um.
15:53
Speaker 1: They say that the first signature was it's curiously benign
15:57
Speaker 1: sweet taste, followed by a general pressure in the head
16:00
Speaker 1: as he continued to inhale. Within thirty seconds, the sensation
16:03
Speaker 1: of soft, probing pressure had extended to his chest and
16:06
Speaker 1: the tips of his fingers and toes. This was accompanied
16:09
Speaker 1: by a vibrant burst of pleasure and a gradual change
16:11
Speaker 1: in the world around him. Objects became brighter and clearer,
16:15
Speaker 1: and the space in the cramped box seemed to expand
16:17
Speaker 1: and take on unfamiliar dimensions. Now under the influence of
16:21
Speaker 1: the largest dose of nitrous oxide anyone had ever taken,
16:24
Speaker 1: these effects were intensified to levels he could not have imagined.
16:29
Speaker 1: Should I keep going sure, do you want to do
16:32
Speaker 1: you want to take over? I think it's better when
16:34
Speaker 1: we break it, Okay. His hearing became fantastically acute, allowing
16:40
Speaker 1: him to distinguish every sound in the room, and seemingly
16:43
Speaker 1: from far beyond, a vast distant hump wah wah wah wah,
16:47
Speaker 1: perhaps the vibration of the universe itself. In his field
16:50
Speaker 1: of vision. The objects around him were teasing themselves apart
16:53
Speaker 1: into shining packets of light and energy. He was rising
16:56
Speaker 1: effortlessly in a new world whose existence he had never suspected. Somehow,
17:00
Speaker 1: the whole experience was irresistibly funny. So Robert Southey, his
17:04
Speaker 1: buddy you mentioned the future poet laureate. He brought him in.
17:08
Speaker 1: Afterward he was like, I gotta get some more people
17:10
Speaker 1: in on this fantastic I gotta share this. Yeah, that's
17:13
Speaker 1: what you do. So he brought in Southey, got him high,
17:17
Speaker 1: and he wrote his brother Tom a letter that said,
17:21
Speaker 1: oh Tom, exclamation point, such a gas. As Davy discovered
17:26
Speaker 1: the gaseous oxid, Oh Tom again, exclamation point, I have
17:32
Speaker 1: had some. It made me laugh and tingle in every
17:34
Speaker 1: toe and fingertip. Davy has actually invented a new pleasure
17:37
Speaker 1: for which language has no name. Oh Tom, I am
17:41
Speaker 1: going for more this evening. It makes one strong and
17:44
Speaker 1: so happy, so gloriously happy. Oh excellent air bag exclamation point.
17:50
Speaker 1: Pretty great stuff, no wonder So in the summer of
17:55
Speaker 1: after they closed the shop down the Pneumatic Institution, during
17:59
Speaker 1: the day, he would invite surgeons and playwrights and poets
18:03
Speaker 1: and chemists and anyone who was interested who we could
18:07
Speaker 1: get the word to to come in there and huff
18:09
Speaker 1: nitrius um. I was about to say under the guise
18:12
Speaker 1: of experimentation, but it really was because he would he
18:15
Speaker 1: learned that he was really finding that there were it
18:18
Speaker 1: was a language experiment because no one could accurately describe
18:22
Speaker 1: what they were feeling with English words right exactly they
18:26
Speaker 1: He found that very strange and insignificant that people would
18:30
Speaker 1: just come out and just couldn't put it into into
18:33
Speaker 1: words their experience. I mean, it was a brand new sensation,
18:36
Speaker 1: there was um. One guy, James Thompson said, we must
18:39
Speaker 1: either invent new terms to express these new and peculiar sensations,
18:43
Speaker 1: or attach new ideas to old ones before we can
18:46
Speaker 1: communicate intelligently, or I'm sorry intelligibly with each other on
18:50
Speaker 1: the operation of this extraordinary gas. I think Um Samuel
18:54
Speaker 1: Taylor Coleridge, the great poet, um put it best. He
18:58
Speaker 1: put it really succinctly. He basically said that it was
19:01
Speaker 1: like coming in from the snow into a warm room. Yeah.
19:06
Speaker 1: So what happened was he did these experiments of these people.
19:09
Speaker 1: They eventually got kind of tired of it. He experimented
19:12
Speaker 1: on himself, like, not even in the room. He just
19:14
Speaker 1: would fill up a big balloon or not a balloon
19:16
Speaker 1: but a sip bag and just walk around England huffing.
19:22
Speaker 1: And he found himself getting psychologically hooked at least because
19:28
Speaker 1: he said, he confessed that the desire to breathe the
19:31
Speaker 1: gas is awakened in me by the sight of a
19:33
Speaker 1: person breathing. So he would just see someone walking and
19:37
Speaker 1: breathing and think, oh, man, I wish I had some gas.
19:39
Speaker 1: That's how they call it, hippie crack, Yeah, exactly. So
19:42
Speaker 1: everyone else fell away. He was only experimenting with himself
19:45
Speaker 1: for a little while. Then he brings in Cole Ridge
19:47
Speaker 1: and they really buddied up, and Um, he I think
19:50
Speaker 1: they were just kind of saw eye to eye on
19:53
Speaker 1: the gas like neither one of them wanted to cease
19:56
Speaker 1: using it. And so again, though you have to point out,
20:00
Speaker 1: all this time, while he's under the he's just huffing
20:02
Speaker 1: nitrous basically constantly. Humphrey Davy is still remaining a man
20:06
Speaker 1: of science. Right, So remember December was the day that
20:12
Speaker 1: the Boxing Day experiment took place, right by Easter. Just
20:16
Speaker 1: a few months later, he'd written a five hundred and
20:19
Speaker 1: eighty page scientific treatise on nitrous oxide and its effects
20:24
Speaker 1: on humans and animals? Should I read the title Researches
20:30
Speaker 1: Chemical and Philosophical Chiefly concerning Nitrous oxide or de man?
20:35
Speaker 1: What is that word? Deflogisticated nitrous air and its respiration
20:41
Speaker 1: was the name of it? Yes, So in that book
20:44
Speaker 1: he mentioned something um kind of I guess off handedly.
20:48
Speaker 1: He says that as nitrous oxide appears capable of destroying
20:51
Speaker 1: physical pain, it may probably be used with advantage during
20:54
Speaker 1: surgical operations in which no great effusion of blood takes place. Yes,
20:58
Speaker 1: so not like open heart surgery, but maybe if you're
21:01
Speaker 1: gonna set someone's broken arm. Right, So he says this,
21:06
Speaker 1: But it's another forty years before Horace Wells starts trying
21:11
Speaker 1: to use nitrous oxide as an anesthetic. Up to that point,
21:15
Speaker 1: it's basically just a high society drug that people have
21:19
Speaker 1: like nitrous parties with. That was the fate of nitrous
21:23
Speaker 1: oxide from eighteen hundred to about the eighteen forties. And
21:26
Speaker 1: then Horace Wells picks it up and it becomes brought
21:29
Speaker 1: into the medical field. Yeah, they finally start using it
21:33
Speaker 1: for its intended Uh, well, what would end up being
21:35
Speaker 1: its intended purpose? That's still used today, right and uh.
21:40
Speaker 1: In fact, nitrous oxide is the number one inhaled anesthetic
21:44
Speaker 1: in the medical profession. Asked for it by name. And
21:48
Speaker 1: here's the deal though, when you get it in the
21:50
Speaker 1: at the dentist, they can actually vary it, but it
21:53
Speaker 1: never goes more than a seventy thirty mix. I saw
21:56
Speaker 1: that too. This article says it's always a fifty fifty mix.
21:59
Speaker 1: That's not right. So it's it's um no more than
22:03
Speaker 1: nitrous Yeah, which is very much key, as you'll learn,
22:06
Speaker 1: because one of the big dangers of doing it recreationally
22:10
Speaker 1: is not mixing it with oxygen. If you mix it
22:13
Speaker 1: with oxygen, like, you're fine, You're totally fine. Um, So
22:19
Speaker 1: it's kind of nuts. Chuck that with nitrous oxide. We've
22:23
Speaker 1: spent at least a hundred and fifty years and still
22:26
Speaker 1: the day we're not a million percent sure, but at
22:29
Speaker 1: least a hundred and fifty years using it medically without
22:33
Speaker 1: understanding how it worked. Yeah, it's like you said, though
22:36
Speaker 1: it's still a little dicey. It is a little bit
22:37
Speaker 1: dice know. It makes you feel good, right, It does
22:41
Speaker 1: the trick, and it kicks in your your dopamine and
22:43
Speaker 1: all the pleasure receptors. So it's it's classified as three things.
22:47
Speaker 1: It's an analgesic, which means that it kills pain, it's
22:49
Speaker 1: a it's an anesthetic, but it's actually not a true anesthetic.
22:53
Speaker 1: And uh, it's an anxio lot eltic, which means it
22:57
Speaker 1: diminishes anxiety. And so I found this two thousand six
23:01
Speaker 1: paper um and it basically says here's what we think
23:06
Speaker 1: is going on. So within angxiolitic um, it triggers the
23:11
Speaker 1: same um response in the brain as a benzodiazepin, which
23:16
Speaker 1: is like valium or z annex or something like that.
23:18
Speaker 1: So it actually does cut down an anxiety, which is
23:21
Speaker 1: why they dentist will use it for like little kids
23:24
Speaker 1: or patients who are like nervous about going to the dentists.
23:27
Speaker 1: Get a little gas, probably not a seventy thirty concentration,
23:31
Speaker 1: just a little bit, and it will cut down on
23:33
Speaker 1: your anxiety and you're you're totally fine, Doc, go ahead
23:36
Speaker 1: and do whatever you like. UM as far as an
23:38
Speaker 1: analgesic is concerned, it actually does have a tremendous amount
23:43
Speaker 1: of um an ability to cut down on pain. And
23:46
Speaker 1: it does so by activating your opioids that those are released,
23:51
Speaker 1: opioids are producing the brain and your sorry opioid receptors
23:55
Speaker 1: are activated as well. And then it also goes to
23:59
Speaker 1: your spinal column and messes with its ability to UM
24:02
Speaker 1: to process pain there too. And they say that something
24:05
Speaker 1: like a just a thirty percent concentration of nitrous oxide
24:10
Speaker 1: is equal to about ten to fifteen milligrams of morphine. Yeah,
24:13
Speaker 1: and that's if it's fifty fifty or below with oxygen.
24:16
Speaker 1: It's on the analgesic side, I think up to is
24:21
Speaker 1: when it is known as an anesthetic, right, and so
24:24
Speaker 1: it's not technically an anesthetic in that if you if
24:28
Speaker 1: you huff that until you lost consciousness, you're probably in
24:32
Speaker 1: big trouble. You don't want to use nitrous oxide for that,
24:35
Speaker 1: and anesthetists know that kind of thing. But it's used
24:39
Speaker 1: usually as an aid to a general anesthetic, right, And
24:43
Speaker 1: it does have anesthetic properties, but it's a dissociative anesthetic,
24:47
Speaker 1: kind of like ketamine, which means that it goes after
24:50
Speaker 1: your n M d A receptors, which have to do
24:53
Speaker 1: with memory formation and they control UM like neural firing. Right,
24:59
Speaker 1: And it has a dissociative effect, which is why when
25:02
Speaker 1: you're on nitris you feel like you have left your body,
25:06
Speaker 1: You've gone back the time you died and are being reborn. Yeah.
25:10
Speaker 1: And one of the UM, we'll talk a little bit
25:11
Speaker 1: more about childbirth later, but um, one of the quotes
25:14
Speaker 1: I saw from a childbirth nurse. Um, they said they
25:18
Speaker 1: the mothers who use it during childbirth are that sometimes
25:22
Speaker 1: they can still feel pain, they just don't care about it,
25:24
Speaker 1: which would be the disassociative quality. But I don't get
25:28
Speaker 1: because you said it was an analgesic. Yeah, I mean, well,
25:32
Speaker 1: I guess maybe childbirth is so painful you can't knock
25:35
Speaker 1: it out completely. And also I mean, like with anesthetics
25:38
Speaker 1: of any kind, UM or even analgesics, any any person
25:41
Speaker 1: is going to have different reactions, varying reactions to different drugs,
25:45
Speaker 1: you know. UM, So that's that's kind of the current
25:49
Speaker 1: state of understanding with um the what nitrous does to
25:54
Speaker 1: the brain. Right, you can also find nitrous elsewhere outside
25:58
Speaker 1: of medical settings to right, Yeah, you can find in
26:00
Speaker 1: the can of ready whip, or if you UM, A
26:05
Speaker 1: lot of chefs will have their own um nitrous canister
26:08
Speaker 1: to put whatever they want in it, uh to be
26:10
Speaker 1: used as a propellant. So uh, it works really well
26:14
Speaker 1: with fatty liquids and heavy creams and things. So what
26:17
Speaker 1: happens is the gases in there compressed into a liquid
26:21
Speaker 1: and mixed with the cream because it's it's fat soluble,
26:25
Speaker 1: highly pressurized. But as soon as you open that thing up,
26:29
Speaker 1: it turns back into a gas and expands it like
26:32
Speaker 1: four times. So that's why the whip cream will come
26:34
Speaker 1: shooting out. What's neat is you could buy ready whip
26:38
Speaker 1: twenty years hence after it sat in a garage in Tampa, Florida,
26:43
Speaker 1: say somewhere hot and muggy and shake it up and
26:48
Speaker 1: pour it out, and that whipped cream will be totally fresh,
26:51
Speaker 1: not the least bit rancid. That's because nitrous oxide totally
26:56
Speaker 1: displaces air and oxygen, so no bacteria can can form
27:00
Speaker 1: inside a can of ready whip or any other instant
27:04
Speaker 1: whip cream. Well, and that displacement of oxygen is also
27:07
Speaker 1: why you can die if you, let's say, put a
27:10
Speaker 1: bag over your head to intensify your high if you're
27:13
Speaker 1: using it recreationally. Well, we'll talk more about that later, right, yes,
27:17
Speaker 1: before we break though, let's mention cars, because anyone who
27:21
Speaker 1: has ever seen Fast and Furious is or is this
27:26
Speaker 1: Sammy Hagar solo fan, I can't drive, that's right. Does
27:31
Speaker 1: he talk about nitros No, but it's just assumed that
27:34
Speaker 1: there's nitrous involved. Well, you've heard, you may have heard
27:37
Speaker 1: or seen on TV or movies about using nitrous in
27:40
Speaker 1: your car, like you have that little tank or you
27:42
Speaker 1: may see one of those cheesy cars in a parking
27:45
Speaker 1: lot with the with the little tank in there. And
27:48
Speaker 1: basically what it does is cars run burn hotter. Engines
27:51
Speaker 1: burn hotter and go faster with more oxygen. And if
27:54
Speaker 1: you crank in that nitrous oxide, Uh, it's just basically
27:58
Speaker 1: going to ramp up the oxygen level going into the engine. Right,
28:02
Speaker 1: with more oxygen, more gaskets burned, right, more gaskets burned,
28:06
Speaker 1: more horsepowers produced because the gases expanding pump those pistons
28:09
Speaker 1: even harder than You're too fast and too furious for
28:12
Speaker 1: the roads, maybe even doing a little tokyo drifting. Have
28:16
Speaker 1: you seen those any of them? No? But I believe
28:20
Speaker 1: I believe they're the most lucrative movie franchise in the
28:23
Speaker 1: history of like all movies, because I made seven of them. Yeah,
28:29
Speaker 1: but like the first one made a billion dollars its
28:32
Speaker 1: first week, or last one. The last one made like
28:34
Speaker 1: a billion dollars. It's crazy how I think I saw
28:38
Speaker 1: the first one. I've never seen any of them. But
28:41
Speaker 1: that's about it's just not my bag. I don't. If
28:44
Speaker 1: you like that kind of thing, that's great. I'm not.
28:48
Speaker 1: I've never been a car guy. Yeah, you know, like
28:51
Speaker 1: I like my cars, but I've never been like, oh man,
28:53
Speaker 1: look at that sports car. I sure would like to
28:56
Speaker 1: drive fast in that. Well. Remember when we hosted or
29:00
Speaker 1: Um Judge that Red Bull thing. Oh yeah, I was
29:02
Speaker 1: talking to uh young Jock and I was talking to
29:06
Speaker 1: him and he started talking about cars, and I'm like, Wow,
29:08
Speaker 1: we don't have anything in common, do we. Yeah, Josh
29:11
Speaker 1: and I judged a soapbox derby contest sponsored by Red
29:13
Speaker 1: Bull and Young Jock at local Atlanta rapper who was
29:16
Speaker 1: super cool. He's a very nice guy, but he was
29:18
Speaker 1: a car dude, and I'm not a car dude. I
29:20
Speaker 1: know you're not a car dude either. Like, well, I
29:23
Speaker 1: got my pickup truck. Yeah, I'm like, look at those
29:25
Speaker 1: uh tires pretty neat. They really make contact with the asphalt,
29:31
Speaker 1: don't they. All Right, well, let's take a break and
29:34
Speaker 1: go learn more about cars, and we'll come back and
29:38
Speaker 1: talk about some of the recreational use and dangers. But
29:40
Speaker 1: we're done talking about cars, right And by the way,
30:00
Speaker 1: if you want to know about cars, if you're into
30:02
Speaker 1: that kind of thing and you love us, and you're
30:05
Speaker 1: not getting your fixed from cars from us, go listen
30:08
Speaker 1: to car stuff. You don't. You're definitely not getting your
30:11
Speaker 1: fix about cars from us. I can't tell you that
30:13
Speaker 1: you can get it from car stuff. Ben and Scott
30:15
Speaker 1: have it locked down over there. I bet you they've
30:17
Speaker 1: covered nitros. I'm sure in the automobile they've covered everything. Alright. So, uh,
30:23
Speaker 1: recreational use, um, it has this medical purposes and its
30:26
Speaker 1: food and auto purposes. But Nitris is very famous for
30:32
Speaker 1: becoming um, a big, a big, especially at concerts. That's
30:38
Speaker 1: what they call it, hippie crack. In the in the seventies,
30:41
Speaker 1: you started being able to buy this stuff like a
30:43
Speaker 1: big balloon full of it at like a concert festival or,
30:46
Speaker 1: let's be honest, at a Grateful Dead show. All right.
30:49
Speaker 1: They're also I'll post that Rolling Stone um article on
30:54
Speaker 1: the podcast page for this. Really interesting it is, but
30:57
Speaker 1: it's also a a what is that? Oh, it's called
31:02
Speaker 1: second hand embarrassment? Like, um, what people getting from watching
31:06
Speaker 1: the Jeb Bush campaign? Second hand embarrassment? Well, yes, what
31:09
Speaker 1: you never hear somebody? Yes, exactly, Um, the the the
31:15
Speaker 1: you definitely get that from reading this because the writers
31:20
Speaker 1: very earnestly super seventies. Yeah, Like, one of the person
31:26
Speaker 1: that people who has interviewed as a as an expert
31:29
Speaker 1: of source is the guy from High Times. Only in
31:33
Speaker 1: the mid seventies did you get away with calling up
31:35
Speaker 1: the High Times guy and just using him like a
31:38
Speaker 1: regular source. You'll see what I'm saying, like it sounds normal.
31:42
Speaker 1: Read the article and you'll be like, yeah, this is
31:45
Speaker 1: super seventies. Well, in the seventies is when it started
31:48
Speaker 1: becoming a big concert going activity. Oh wait, I know
31:52
Speaker 1: it was room. In this Rolling Stone article they were saying,
31:55
Speaker 1: like if you go to like a lot of us
31:57
Speaker 1: said at Burke in Berkeley, California, and they were like
32:00
Speaker 1: places all over, not just a concerts. Sure, um, it
32:03
Speaker 1: was everywhere in the seventies. Yeah, because a lot of
32:06
Speaker 1: people were like, a, SI, it's cool, but this stuff
32:09
Speaker 1: like you could just stop and five minutes later you're
32:11
Speaker 1: back on your feet. Yeah, so it was like a
32:14
Speaker 1: big deal to them. Well, which is one reason they
32:16
Speaker 1: call it hippie crack, because the the highest short lived.
32:20
Speaker 1: Uh and you want to do another one? Uh and
32:23
Speaker 1: go listen to our crack episode. Should we talk about
32:26
Speaker 1: why the highest short lived? Uh? Well, let me finish
32:29
Speaker 1: my thoughts. Sorry. So um, earlier in the nineteenth and
32:34
Speaker 1: twentieth century, though, like you said, when it was um
32:36
Speaker 1: sort of the back room parlor game of the high society.
32:40
Speaker 1: It made its way into Hollywood and uh back in
32:43
Speaker 1: like the days of making High Times and movies like
32:46
Speaker 1: or Not High Times? The h what was the one
32:49
Speaker 1: cast of Blanket No, the famous pop movie I'm totally
32:53
Speaker 1: blanking out on the pot movie madness. Uh, there were
32:58
Speaker 1: movies about huffing those. Charlie Chaplin was in one in
33:01
Speaker 1: nine fourteen where he played a dentist. Uh, well, someone
33:05
Speaker 1: posing as a dentist who would hugh gas? Have you
33:08
Speaker 1: have you ever seen that chaplin um thing where he
33:10
Speaker 1: does coke and jail and ends up like pulling the
33:12
Speaker 1: bars apart. It's pretty hilarious actually. And there were several
33:17
Speaker 1: movies early on called laughing gas, not just one, right,
33:21
Speaker 1: and they weren't sequels. There were just multiple movies called
33:23
Speaker 1: laughing gas. Yeah, I'm sure you could get a decent
33:26
Speaker 1: amount of people into a theater to watch people doing
33:28
Speaker 1: laughing gas. And then they thought, man, I could go
33:31
Speaker 1: for some laughing gas myself. All right, So what were
33:35
Speaker 1: you gonna say about? Oh? Why the high last such
33:40
Speaker 1: a short period of time? So it's constant while you're
33:42
Speaker 1: huffing it, right, because you're huffing nitrogen gas or nitrogen
33:46
Speaker 1: nitrogen oxide gas. Yeah, and it's displacing oxygen I'm sorry,
33:50
Speaker 1: nitros oxide gas, and it is displacing oxygen. But as
33:53
Speaker 1: long as you're huffing in a safe supply of oxygen
33:57
Speaker 1: as well, your brains continuing to function. But you're opioid
34:00
Speaker 1: receptors are also going crazy, and you're dissociative, and d
34:04
Speaker 1: m A receptors are going crazy too, and so you're high,
34:07
Speaker 1: but you're staying alive because you're taking in enough oxygen. Right.
34:11
Speaker 1: The thing is, your body doesn't metabolize almost any of
34:16
Speaker 1: that nitrous oxide. Something like point zero zero four percent
34:20
Speaker 1: of nitrous oxide is metabolized for the most part. You
34:23
Speaker 1: huff it in, it's dissipated through your lungs and your
34:26
Speaker 1: bloodstream and then brought back out and you exhale it,
34:29
Speaker 1: so it resembles almost exactly. It's same form that it
34:33
Speaker 1: went in when it comes out, which means that there's
34:36
Speaker 1: no hangover and it's expelled from your body through breathing,
34:40
Speaker 1: just normal breathing after you take the nitrous away, which
34:43
Speaker 1: is why so many people were like, you can have
34:45
Speaker 1: crazy visions on this. This is what the hippies were saying.
34:48
Speaker 1: You can have crazy visions on this, and it takes
34:50
Speaker 1: you to other universes and then five minutes later, you're fine,
34:54
Speaker 1: sign me up. Let's call the High Times guy and
34:56
Speaker 1: see what he thinks about it. Let's get a quote
34:58
Speaker 1: from him. H I did find a study though, and UM,
35:03
Speaker 1: I think it was last year, uh, published in Clinical neurophysiology,
35:08
Speaker 1: that they've hooked people up to an e G And
35:11
Speaker 1: had him huff nitrous They really yeah, and the guy
35:15
Speaker 1: there said nitrous oxide has control over the brain in
35:17
Speaker 1: ways no other drug does. And what they found was
35:20
Speaker 1: UM it altered it basically created slow delta waves for
35:24
Speaker 1: up to three minutes across the front of the brain
35:27
Speaker 1: every ten seconds. I wonder if that's what makes the sound. Well,
35:31
Speaker 1: it's it's basically what they found is it lasted for
35:34
Speaker 1: three minutes. After you think you're okay, oh yeah, so
35:37
Speaker 1: it's still uh, still doing damage even though you think
35:42
Speaker 1: you feel fine for for three minutes, which completely surprised them.
35:46
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I could see that especially. I mean, if
35:48
Speaker 1: the effects where off, you would think, yeah, you would
35:52
Speaker 1: you you would physiologically be back to normal too. I
35:56
Speaker 1: found another study, UM from I'm not sure when that
36:00
Speaker 1: sometimes in the last few years where they studied the
36:04
Speaker 1: effects of it on rats and found that UM short
36:09
Speaker 1: term low concentration exposure and low concentration meaning like fifty
36:13
Speaker 1: years like what they use medically, UM would like the
36:17
Speaker 1: effects of it on the brain neural cells. Is reversible.
36:22
Speaker 1: But it is very true. And this is why everybody
36:24
Speaker 1: hears about nitrous oxide is that when you huff you
36:28
Speaker 1: it kills brain cells. That's absolutely true. It create It
36:32
Speaker 1: creates apoptosis, which is pre programmed cellular death, and your neurons.
36:37
Speaker 1: It causes your brain cells to die because of a
36:39
Speaker 1: lack of oxygen. Nitrogen or nitrous oxide displaces oxygen and
36:43
Speaker 1: your brain needs oxygen. When your brain cells don't get oxygen,
36:47
Speaker 1: they die and your brain undergoes hypoxy All right, not
36:50
Speaker 1: good for you. Plus the fact that um, it goes
36:54
Speaker 1: after n D M A uh receptors which are responsible
36:58
Speaker 1: for the mile in, which is the sheath that coats
37:00
Speaker 1: your your nerves right yeah, um that can lead to
37:06
Speaker 1: brain damage. That last two The thing is, and this
37:09
Speaker 1: is a rat study, it seems like it's prolonged exposure
37:12
Speaker 1: or exposure super high concentrations that that create irreversible damage. Yeah.
37:17
Speaker 1: They've done a lot more studying about it in the
37:20
Speaker 1: UK than here because up until this year it was legal. Yeah. Well,
37:25
Speaker 1: so I guess the results of the study weren't promising.
37:27
Speaker 1: Uh well, I mean this is that only what is
37:30
Speaker 1: it now? Mid February. Yeah, it's only like two weeks
37:33
Speaker 1: ago that like literally came on the books has officially law. Uh.
37:37
Speaker 1: And there were big demonstrations in in England, like like
37:40
Speaker 1: massive huffing parties on the lawn of Uh. Like the
37:45
Speaker 1: I don't know where they decide these things is a Parliament,
37:47
Speaker 1: Buckingham Palace, say Buckingham Palace because they're like this is
37:52
Speaker 1: you know, what are we gonna do at Glastonbury Festival
37:55
Speaker 1: every year? Now? Uh? And they nice buzz marketing. By
37:59
Speaker 1: the way, what the glass roof? Well we're not going
38:03
Speaker 1: to that, I know, I was saying nice. Um, well,
38:06
Speaker 1: they do it a lot there. That's why the festival
38:09
Speaker 1: people said it's like a big litter offender because I
38:13
Speaker 1: could totally see that canisters and balloons are just everywhere,
38:16
Speaker 1: and you know, birds pick up the balloons and they
38:19
Speaker 1: tried to fly off of the cancers and tear their
38:21
Speaker 1: legs off because they're not strong enough to lift them.
38:24
Speaker 1: So worldwide it was in two thousand fourteen it was
38:27
Speaker 1: the fourteenth most used drug in the world and um, yeah,
38:34
Speaker 1: huh would you think it be higher or lower? I
38:36
Speaker 1: didn't even think about it. I think it's just that
38:38
Speaker 1: stats is totally common, by surprise. Uh. And The Independent
38:42
Speaker 1: said that UM the UK's largest drug and alcohol charity,
38:46
Speaker 1: alistair BOM. They said, you know what, we can't credibly
38:50
Speaker 1: deny that, compared to other drugs, is relatively low risk.
38:53
Speaker 1: The risk from taking it from balloons are quite low. Uh.
38:56
Speaker 1: And to back up what you said, he said, where
38:57
Speaker 1: there have been stories about deaths, they tend to be
39:00
Speaker 1: from people who are using canisters uh in masks. Uh.
39:04
Speaker 1: That's when you get into danger. Like that's stupid. Let
39:06
Speaker 1: me get up this old World War two gas masks,
39:09
Speaker 1: or let me put a bag over my head, or
39:10
Speaker 1: let me get in a car. Uh. And then you're
39:12
Speaker 1: not getting that mix of oxygen and then you die.
39:15
Speaker 1: First of all, kids, if you are putting a plastic
39:18
Speaker 1: bag over your head for any reason, don't do it.
39:20
Speaker 1: You're a dummy. That's a dumb thing to do. Well, yeah,
39:24
Speaker 1: you're you're you're reaching, you're going down the wrong path
39:28
Speaker 1: in life. That's a great way to put it, because
39:32
Speaker 1: I don't want some kid to be like, oh, I'm
39:33
Speaker 1: a dummy and that's why I do these things. You know,
39:36
Speaker 1: that's self defeating. Come on, come on, But there have
39:39
Speaker 1: been plenty of plenty of incidences of death. UM. Joseph
39:44
Speaker 1: been At, a seventeen year old from North London, died
39:46
Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve after falling into a coma. And
39:50
Speaker 1: then just this year that's twenty one year old student
39:53
Speaker 1: was found dead Um in his room with two hundred
39:56
Speaker 1: spent cartridges. Oh well, they're just chasing that high. It's
40:00
Speaker 1: the problem. Yes, I mean, you shouldn't try it at all,
40:03
Speaker 1: but you're you're gonna die when you have those high, high,
40:07
Speaker 1: high concentrations. Yeah, that's the I mean, that's the problem
40:11
Speaker 1: with nitrous. I mean, like, if you're being administered nitrous,
40:14
Speaker 1: even in a medical setting, you can have a bad
40:16
Speaker 1: reaction to it and it turns out your allergic to
40:19
Speaker 1: nitrous and your dead or if you are in right,
40:24
Speaker 1: but if you even if you're in a medical setting,
40:26
Speaker 1: you're you're you're flirting with death. You're right there on
40:30
Speaker 1: on the edge of death. And if you're doing it
40:31
Speaker 1: outside of medical setting, your likelihood of dying or or
40:35
Speaker 1: suffering some sort of horrible adverse reaction to it is
40:38
Speaker 1: even more through the roof, right, especially if you're taking
40:41
Speaker 1: hits straight out of a tank and you're not taking
40:44
Speaker 1: breaths of clean air in between. Yes, you you very
40:48
Speaker 1: likely could die. And it's not just um hypoxia that
40:52
Speaker 1: that gets you or asphyxiation. You can also die from
40:56
Speaker 1: passing out and hitting your head. Yeah. Or I saw
41:00
Speaker 1: this one sad case. I think it was in the
41:02
Speaker 1: United States. This uh lady's son, like you know, wandered
41:07
Speaker 1: out into traffic and got hit by a car from
41:09
Speaker 1: nitrous Yeah, because he did nitrous and was just like
41:12
Speaker 1: so spaced out. He just kind of walked out into traffic. Um,
41:16
Speaker 1: because you're not you know, you're not aware of what's
41:18
Speaker 1: going on at the time and chasing that high like
41:21
Speaker 1: I was talking about, Uh, it would feel so good.
41:24
Speaker 1: You're like, but it's so fast, Like, well, how can
41:26
Speaker 1: I prolong that experience? I'll just stop breathing regular aeron between.
41:30
Speaker 1: What a waste. Yeah, it's just it's not smart. No,
41:35
Speaker 1: it doesn't know. Um, I think we got that across
41:37
Speaker 1: the naway. I think. So, you know who doesn't do
41:40
Speaker 1: nitrous No, how no way who scientologists? Uh? Why? L
41:46
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard hated nitrous oxide really so much so that
41:50
Speaker 1: he stopped going to the dentist he had famously terrible
41:53
Speaker 1: um teeth, and he didn't go to the dentist, and
41:57
Speaker 1: he in eight he did go to the dentist to
42:01
Speaker 1: have some work done, and they put him under with
42:03
Speaker 1: some nitris and he had a near death experience and
42:06
Speaker 1: came back and he wrote in a manuscript called ex Caliber,
42:10
Speaker 1: and it's unpublished, and in ex Caliber, l Ron Hubbard
42:13
Speaker 1: claimed that anyone who read it either went insane committed suicide.
42:17
Speaker 1: I remember reading about that, and and all of this
42:19
Speaker 1: knowledge was given to him from his nitrous oxide experience.
42:22
Speaker 1: So he determined that nitrous oxide is very bad. It's
42:25
Speaker 1: a hypnotic, it makes you too suggestible, and um, you
42:29
Speaker 1: should avoid at all costs. Interesting. Yeah, he writes about
42:32
Speaker 1: it in Dianetics, saying it's it's a bad jam. He's
42:34
Speaker 1: the only person to ever do it and not say
42:36
Speaker 1: this is great. You had a bad time on it. Well,
42:39
Speaker 1: let's talk about childbirth, uh, unless you have anything else. No.
42:44
Speaker 1: So in Canada, in Finland, Australia, and the United Kingdom, Uh,
42:51
Speaker 1: traditionally women have used this and still do today during
42:55
Speaker 1: childbirth up to six in the UK and about and
42:59
Speaker 1: those other countries. But it's not in the US. In
43:02
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, less than one percent of hospitals even
43:05
Speaker 1: offered it. I've never heard of that in the US.
43:09
Speaker 1: Well that's all changing now. UM. Basically, the medical establishment
43:13
Speaker 1: is basically saying, there's really no good reason not to.
43:16
Speaker 1: It's just sort of stubbornness in our history and being
43:20
Speaker 1: fixed in our ways. UM of offering the epidural and
43:23
Speaker 1: and other kinds of drugs during childbirth. So it's there's
43:27
Speaker 1: been a big push lately to have it as an
43:28
Speaker 1: option at least for women. UM. Labor machines are only
43:32
Speaker 1: fifty fifty. You can't even alter the setting to go
43:35
Speaker 1: any higher than that. Uh. And it's self administered, Like
43:38
Speaker 1: the woman has the mask and she breathes it when
43:42
Speaker 1: she feels like she needs it, and at any point
43:44
Speaker 1: she can be like nope, I want the epidural. UM.
43:49
Speaker 1: The thing is, though epidurals can be really expensive, UM
43:52
Speaker 1: nitris is super cheap. It is super cheap. And again
43:55
Speaker 1: it's as effective as ten to fifteen milligrams of morphine
43:59
Speaker 1: for take can care pain. So they're basically saying women
44:02
Speaker 1: should have the option at least if they want to
44:04
Speaker 1: try it out. Uh, it's a lot cheaper than an epidural,
44:08
Speaker 1: uh safer and they haven't um epidural. I mean they're
44:12
Speaker 1: narcotics and epidurals. Say, you know, there are a lot
44:14
Speaker 1: of side effects, and they really haven't found any side
44:16
Speaker 1: effects with that fifty mix under like a controlled supervise setting. Well,
44:21
Speaker 1: the big fear though, is that aside from dizziness, the
44:23
Speaker 1: kid is going to absorb some of this and there's
44:26
Speaker 1: going to be neural cell death in the baby as
44:30
Speaker 1: it's delivered. Is that has that been proven wrong? They
44:33
Speaker 1: don't think there is any danger to the kids so
44:35
Speaker 1: far because they said it's filtered through the lungs and
44:38
Speaker 1: uh not like the narcotics that are filtered to deliver um.
44:42
Speaker 1: So they said, so far they haven't found where it
44:44
Speaker 1: hurts the baby in any way. Plus, it lets you
44:46
Speaker 1: remember being born. I just think the self administration part
44:51
Speaker 1: of is pretty interesting. Yeah that they you know, it
44:54
Speaker 1: makes lets the woman feel more in control, supposedly of
44:57
Speaker 1: their own uh comfort. Right, So I'm all for it.
45:02
Speaker 1: Why not? Well, yeah, I mean, if it doesn't have
45:05
Speaker 1: any adverse effects, why not? It is a pretty good question.
45:10
Speaker 1: Are you got anything else? I got nothing else? That's
45:12
Speaker 1: nitrous socks side n two. Oh, Humphrey Davy the gas Uh.
45:20
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about nitrous oxide, type
45:22
Speaker 1: those words in the search part how stuff works dot com.
45:24
Speaker 1: And since I said search parts, time for a listener
45:26
Speaker 1: mayo no, Chuck, no, no, what is it time for?
45:30
Speaker 1: It's time for so chuck First and foremost, I really
45:42
Speaker 1: want to thank John Morgan over at Queen Charlotte's Pimento
45:46
Speaker 1: Cheese Royal. He has hooked us up. Good good stuff,
45:52
Speaker 1: wonderful stuff. The minute cheese, like the best pimento cheese
45:56
Speaker 1: you can buy on the planet, better than palmetto cheese,
45:59
Speaker 1: I think. So. All right, Yeah, yeah, it's good. And
46:02
Speaker 1: there's like some Yeah it's really good. Good try that
46:05
Speaker 1: stuff Queen Charlotte's Pamano Cheese Royal. All right, we received
46:08
Speaker 1: the Christmas cards from the Kavanaughs, the Leaves, the Loses,
46:14
Speaker 1: and you know, Hillary and Mike. We're talking to hook
46:18
Speaker 1: up with the cheese. Yeah, with a flathead lake, flathead
46:21
Speaker 1: lake or just flathead cheese. I think flathead lake. I
46:24
Speaker 1: think it is. It's delicious. Hillary, do the best. Yeah,
46:27
Speaker 1: thank you and the Nelson's so thank you for those
46:30
Speaker 1: Christmas cards. Um Mike over at Shaker and Spoon and
46:35
Speaker 1: the rest of the gang. I thank them before for
46:37
Speaker 1: sending the box. Um, go check out Shaker and Spoon.
46:41
Speaker 1: It's off great gift for yourself for somebody else where.
46:44
Speaker 1: They send you all the ingredients you need to make
46:47
Speaker 1: cocktails putting recipes. You just add booze and wow are
46:51
Speaker 1: your friends? And what better time to go off the
46:54
Speaker 1: page and thank Crown Royal. When we off handedly mentioned
46:58
Speaker 1: that the Crown Royals uh Rye Whiskey won the whiskey
47:02
Speaker 1: year and I was like, man, I'd love to try that,
47:05
Speaker 1: they sent us some someone heard it and they sent
47:07
Speaker 1: us six bottles of Boothe nice guy? Did you try
47:12
Speaker 1: not yet? I guess you just found it today in
47:14
Speaker 1: the office. So did there he tried it? That'd be
47:16
Speaker 1: nine We should We should mention Crown Royal basically every
47:21
Speaker 1: time every episode. So Crown Royal, Ashley Miller, thank you
47:25
Speaker 1: for the wonderful Lego candy that you gave us in
47:27
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Yes, thank you for that. Um, and I
47:31
Speaker 1: think in Los Angeles to remember, she just follows us
47:34
Speaker 1: around with Lego candy, well, at least in California now, um,
47:37
Speaker 1: Lucy Brooks sent us a nice letter. Good luck with
47:39
Speaker 1: the rest of the Granny List, Lucy, thank you, congratulations
47:43
Speaker 1: the best of luck to Allison and Chuck for their
47:45
Speaker 1: wedding in Cleveland. Yes, Um Connor and Beatriz Marinan send
47:50
Speaker 1: us our beautiful wine cork Greek Chuck. Thanks who sent that? Yes,
47:55
Speaker 1: loves that. She won't set it down. Good luck with
47:57
Speaker 1: your alcoholism right just kidding. Thanks to Eric Young from
48:02
Speaker 1: Squamish BC with the typewritten letter. Eric has a site
48:06
Speaker 1: called pigeons and Inc. Dot com where he offers the
48:11
Speaker 1: service of writing typewritten letters on others. Behalf Yeah. He
48:16
Speaker 1: uses a Squarespace site. Pretty awesome. How about that. Kelly
48:20
Speaker 1: from the Elephants Trunk sent us some awesome toys. Thank
48:23
Speaker 1: you very much for those, Kelly. Thank you to him
48:26
Speaker 1: from Melbourne, Australia via Knoxville, Tennessee with the homemade sour
48:30
Speaker 1: dough hot cross bun. Yes, that was good. Um. And
48:34
Speaker 1: then Elizabeth Henry sent us a signed copy of Who
48:38
Speaker 1: Killed Mr Moonlight by the One and Only David J.
48:40
Speaker 1: Of Bauhaus. I made a joke about ba House and
48:44
Speaker 1: Um Elizabeth Henry said, Oh, David J. Is my boyfriend's dad.
48:48
Speaker 1: I'll get him to sign a copy of his autobiography
48:51
Speaker 1: and mail it to the guys. Who was he in Ballhouse?
48:53
Speaker 1: He played Basso. Yeah, he also had a good solo
48:57
Speaker 1: career too. Yeah yeah, Shaan Erskine, thank you for of
49:00
Speaker 1: the stuff you should know bottle cap logo art. That
49:02
Speaker 1: was great. Yes, Um, Jeremy and Irene Kemia K A
49:07
Speaker 1: M I y A send us glass on teak which
49:11
Speaker 1: is amazing, Chuck, let me just describe us. They basically
49:14
Speaker 1: take an awesome piece of teak driftwood sure, and then
49:18
Speaker 1: blow a glass bowl so that it molds on the
49:21
Speaker 1: bottom to that specific piece of tea. And then, buddy,
49:25
Speaker 1: you've got yourself a beautiful place to house a goldfish
49:28
Speaker 1: put used for hurricane, lamp for candle, keep your keys
49:32
Speaker 1: in there, maybe hold those jelly bean counting contests with
49:36
Speaker 1: who knows Sky's limit. But it's awesome and attractive and
49:39
Speaker 1: it looks really really cool and mid century modern, so good.
49:42
Speaker 1: Check out K A M I y A ceo dot com.
49:47
Speaker 1: Dorrian Wilson, owner of Revival Ltd. They make cool shirts
49:51
Speaker 1: and the proceeds of those shirts go to people in
49:54
Speaker 1: Brazil displaced by the World Cup is that right? Wo
50:00
Speaker 1: uh And you can find that information at Revival Global
50:03
Speaker 1: dot com. Yes. Um, Johnny Wood who works for Yakima
50:08
Speaker 1: the outfitter, the biking outfitter, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, Yakima, Yeah,
50:16
Speaker 1: make like pike racks. Thank you. Yeah. He sent us
50:19
Speaker 1: some swag yeah yeah, and he travels around selling Yakima
50:24
Speaker 1: stuff which probably sells itself, you know what I mean.
50:27
Speaker 1: And uh, he listens to us on the road. So
50:29
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Johnny. This is one of my favorites
50:31
Speaker 1: of recent memory. Robbie Zupta he made the bullet pins
50:37
Speaker 1: man and he sent the so long ago and it's
50:39
Speaker 1: so it's we we've just been lack, so thank you
50:42
Speaker 1: for those. It's really neat. He has a series called
50:44
Speaker 1: the He's an artist called the Mightier Than series, as
50:48
Speaker 1: in pin as mightier than the sword, and he takes
50:50
Speaker 1: like bullet casings and makes these fountain pins from bullet casings.
50:55
Speaker 1: It's really neat. Makes a statement in the school looking Yeah. Um,
50:59
Speaker 1: we in a nice letter from Jenny Cochrane. That's that.
51:03
Speaker 1: We want to thank Matt for the handmade hinge game
51:06
Speaker 1: h E n g E is in Stone inche Um
51:09
Speaker 1: and Lori Gesh for the copy of her kid's book
51:12
Speaker 1: Copper Light Colin a really crappy story, very nice, and
51:16
Speaker 1: she sent us some real copper Lights, which is fossilized poop.
51:20
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, I remember seeing that. I have piece
51:23
Speaker 1: tucked in my cheek right now. Thanks to our buddy
51:26
Speaker 1: Gary for the homemade cookies. Uh. And then Beth View
51:29
Speaker 1: Manic Lopez sent us a copy of Unbound colin How
51:33
Speaker 1: Eight Technologies Made Us Human, Transformed Society and brought the
51:36
Speaker 1: World to the Brink by Richard L. Courrier. Thank you
51:39
Speaker 1: very much for that hard copy. No less. Uh. In
51:42
Speaker 1: my final one, I had a bunch of people send
51:45
Speaker 1: very lovely gifts for Ruby. Oh yeah, my baby when
51:49
Speaker 1: we got her, and um, I'm not going to read
51:53
Speaker 1: off all of their names, but you know who you are,
51:55
Speaker 1: and it was very very nice. You know you are they? Uh.
52:00
Speaker 1: I've got the last one all right, uh, which seems
52:03
Speaker 1: chumpy following that heartfelt thing. But thanks a lot to
52:07
Speaker 1: Brett Goodson for sending us pork cloud stuff pork cloud
52:11
Speaker 1: pork grind chips, soap and pork dust. If you're like
52:15
Speaker 1: I'm not too big on bread crumbs. I'd rather than
52:18
Speaker 1: be porky. Port Cloud has you covered. I think that
52:21
Speaker 1: was decidedly non chumpy. Thank you nice, Thank you Brett Goodson,
52:26
Speaker 1: thanks to all Right, well we're gonna finish up. We
52:28
Speaker 1: have quite a few more and we're gonna finish up
52:30
Speaker 1: in the next episode. I think yes and uh as
52:34
Speaker 1: always thank you to those who send in good thoughts
52:37
Speaker 1: and letters and handmade fun gifts were we really appreciate it.
52:42
Speaker 1: It's the best ye uh So, if you want to
52:44
Speaker 1: get in touch of this, you can tweet to us
52:46
Speaker 1: at s y s K podcast. You can join us
52:48
Speaker 1: on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You
52:50
Speaker 1: can send us an email to stuff Podcast at how
52:53
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
52:55
Speaker 1: our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
53:03
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
53:05
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. H