Gasometer
name: label: maker
content: Buffalo Dental Manufacturing Company
notes: label: Description
content: Dentists used gasometers to hold the nitrous oxide with which they sedated their patients. Joseph Priestley had discovered nitrous oxide in 1793, and Humphry Davey, then at the Pneumatic Institute in Bristol, termed it “laughing gas” because of the way it made him feel. Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist in the early 1840s, realized that the sedative effects of the gas would be useful in tooth extractions and other surgeries.
label: Description
content: The "B. D. M. Co. Buffalo, N.Y.” inscription on this gasometer is that of the Buffalo Dental Manufacturing Company, a firm formed in 1867 by George E. Hayes (1804-1882), Benjah T. Whitney (1813-1872), George B. Snow, and Theodore G. Lewis. Following a disastrous fire in March 1891, the firm was reorganized as the Buffalo Dental Supply and Manufacturing Co.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Buffalo
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: W. Harry Archer, D.D.S.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.M-07086
label: catalog number
content: M-7086
label: accession number
content: 218892
objectType: label: Object Name
content: gasometer
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 25 in x 14 in; 63.5 cm x 35.56 cm