The Chemist Who Nearly Killed Himself for Science: Sir Humphry Davy's Reckless Genius

On Boxing Day 1799, a 20-year-old chemist locked himself inside a sealed breathing box and inhaled the largest dose of nitrous oxide anyone had ever taken.

He lost consciousness. His colleagues panicked.

When Humphry Davy finally emerged, he was grinning. He'd just discovered laughing gas, and he'd nearly died doing it.

This wasn't caution. This was the birth of modern chemistry through extreme self-experimentation, public spectacle, and discoveries that would reshape science forever.

The Rise of a Reckless Genius

Born December 17, 1778, in Penzance, Cornwall, Davy started life with no advantages. His father was a woodcarver who died when Humphry was young. His teachers thought he wasn't particularly clever.

At 16, he became an apothecary's apprentice to support his family. He taught himself chemistry by reading books. By his early 20s, his public lectures at the Royal Institution became the hottest ticket in London. Ladies took notes while aristocrats preened in the audience, hoping to assist with his demonstrations.

The fashionable elite didn't just attend scientific lectures. They fought for seats.

Davy's nitrous oxide experiments in 1799 pushed the boundaries of recklessness. He inhaled the gas repeatedly, documenting every sensation as his consciousness slipped away. Engineer James Watt built him a special sealed box for the Boxing Day experiment. Inside, Davy reported "a great disposition to laugh" before his senses became incredibly acute and he blacked out. Poet Robert Southey, one of his test subjects, wrote to his brother in ecstasy: "Davy has actually invented a new pleasure for which language has no name. It made me laugh and tingle in every toe and finger-tip."

Davy discovered the gas could relieve pain during surgery.

He never followed up. It would be 40 years before doctors actually used anesthesia.

In 1807, Davy used a massive battery to discover potassium on the first day of his experiments. The next day, he discovered sodium. The following year, he discovered five more elements: barium, calcium, boron, strontium, and magnesium. His batteries contained up to 2,000 pairs of plates taking up nearly 900 square feet. During public demonstrations, he tossed potassium into water where it skittered across the surface before exploding in lavender flames.

The crowds went wild.

This wasn't just science. It was theater.

Inventions, Rivalries, and the Price of Genius

In 1815, Davy created his miners' safety lamp in just weeks after learning about deadly firedamp explosions in coal mines. The lamp used a wire mesh cylinder to contain flames while allowing light to pass through.

The metal gauze cooled the flame enough to prevent ignition of methane gas.

One mining engineer wrote to Davy in June 1816 that after three months of use, the lamps "answered to my entire satisfaction." But the lamp had an unintended consequence. It encouraged working in previously closed dangerous seams, which actually led to an increase in mine accidents. George Stephenson, who would later invent the steam locomotive, was independently working on a remarkably similar lamp. The two inventors became locked in a bitter dispute over priority. Davy won the public relations battle and received £2,000 worth of silver from public subscription.

To discredit Stephenson, Davy acquired some of his rival's lamps to demonstrate how useless they were.

Davy wasn't just a scientist. He was a published poet who walked through Bristol at night with a silk bag of nitrous oxide, inhaling it while composing poetry under the stars. He befriended Romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Coleridge declared that if Davy "had not been the first chemist, he would have been the first poet of his age."

Recent digitization of his notebooks in 2024 revealed previously unseen poetry, including verses about how people didn't appreciate his inventions like the safety lamp that saved tens of thousands of lives.

The Complicated Legacy with Faraday

In 1813, Davy hired a young bookbinder named Michael Faraday as his laboratory assistant. Faraday would become one of England's greatest scientists.

Their relationship soured when Faraday began making his own discoveries.

In 1821, when Faraday discovered electromagnetic rotation, Davy accused him of plagiarism. As President of the Royal Society, Davy tried to block Faraday's membership. There's a saying that "Davy's greatest discovery was Faraday," though historians note this was likely a cruel joke at Davy's expense rather than his own acknowledgment.

Faraday bore no ill will. He always remembered how Davy had given him his start in science.

The Reckless Genius Who Changed Chemistry

Davy's approach to science was dangerous, competitive, and spectacular. He nearly killed himself multiple times. He feuded with rivals. He blocked his assistant's advancement out of jealousy. But he also discovered more elements than almost anyone in history. He invented a lamp that saved thousands of miners' lives. He made science accessible and exciting to the public.

His legacy isn't clean or simple. It's messy, human, and brilliant.

That's what makes it worth studying.