To start you off, here's a quote from Franks (2006) in the British Journal of Pharmacology:
"The discovery of general anaesthesia is a remarkable story rich
with human tales of serendipity, impropriety, noble ambition
and inflated egos...Horace Wells hit upon the idea of using nitrous oxide while
watching a public demonstration of its powers of intoxication Having satisfied himself by self-administration
that it ameliorated the pain of tooth extraction, he conducted
an abortive demonstration..and was publicly humiliated by this failure. A
former apprentice and colleague of Wells, another dentist
called William Morton subsequently took up Wells’ basic idea
of a gaseous anaesthetic agent, together with the suggestion of
chemist and physician Charles Jackson to use ether, a much
more potent drug, and this culminated in the public demonstration of ether anaesthesia on 16 October 1846 There followed several years of unedifying
wrangling between Jackson, Morton and Wells as to who
deserved credit for the discovery of general anaesthesia, with
Wells eventually committing suicide, Jackson dying in an
insane asylum and Morton dying penniless of a heart attack at the age of 48."
Clearly, if you study anesthetics you're in for a good time!
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