Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/28

 his labours assisted by the co-operation of extraordinary talent, in the person of a young man, Mr. Humphry Davy, (a phoenomenon in chemical knowledge and its adjuncts) who is since removed to a wider scene for the display of his genius, the chair of the Royal Institution, in Albermarle-street, London. Under the auspices of these two great philosophic characters, the Pneumatic Institution has made considerable progress in the discovery of new facts for the enlargement and improvement of medical science. To it we are indebted for the very ingenious and able analysis and application of a new gas, by Mr. Davy, called the nitrous oxyd; which is found to produce effects upon the nervous system and organs of sense equally extraordinary and delightful. It excites a flow of the most pleasurable ideas and exhilarating emotions, unattended with consequent debility, languor, or depression; effects which lead to the hope that it may be capable of restoring decayed nervous energy, and of arresting its premature diminution. The institution has also afforded a field for extensive trials of a new and valuable remedy in consumptions, the Digitalis or Fox-Glove; and with a degree of success that establishes its powers as incomparably superior to any means hitherto employed in this cruel and depopulating disorder.