1-154-945 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Chemical lecture; 'Scientific Researches! - New Discoveries in Pneumaticks! or - an Experimental Lecture on the Powers of Air!', 1802. A shocked audience witnesses experiments with laughing gas at the Royal Institution. A volunteer has a tube inserted into his mouth, the consequence of which is the blowing out of the seat of his trousers; a member of the audience holds his nose at the stink. Thomas Garnett is the lecturer and Humphry Davy is operating the hydraulic bellows filled with laughing gas. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, the founder of the Royal Institution, is standing near the doorway.