ABSTRACT
Hypnosis, or suggestive relaxation, which is still another term for hypnosis, and chemical anesthesia have a great deal more in common than is generally recognized. Over 150 years ago, the chemist, Joseph Priestley, prepared nitrous oxide gas. About fifty years later, Sir Humphry Davy recognized the anesthetic properties of Priestley's gas. It was in 1844 that hypnotism indirectly introduced nitrous oxide gas as an anesthetic agent in this country.
