Lyin ’ with a Lion: Deceptive Advertising for “Vitalized Air” Anesthetics

Soon after earning his D.D.S. in 1891 from the Ohio College of Dental Surgery, Dr. Charley D. Richey set up practice in York, Pennsylvania. From Ohio dentists, Richey had mastered how to extend nitrous oxide ’s anesthetic duration by supplementing it with trace amounts of alcohol and chloroform. By concealing his anesthetic’s identity as “vitalized air” (bottom), he could reassure patients that they were not receiving nitrous oxide —the gas that many feared after reading press reports about laughing gas mishaps. “Vitalized air” reigned as a king of American dental anesthetics in the 1890s, so perhaps it made sense that Richey used the “king of beasts” (above) on one of his trade cards advertising the gas mixture. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
Source: Anesthesiology - Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: research