An angel guides a young woman skyward (upper image) in this image from the obverse of a trade card from the Ben Z. Swanson Collection of the Wood Library-Museum. On the card’s reverse, one box (lower) cites two of the weekdays that dental and “nitrous oxide gas” services would be provided at New Egypt, New Jersey, by George Whitehill Chamberlain, D.D.S. (1855 to 1905). In the early 1900s, understandably, most American physicians and dentists shied away from advertising death, dying, or the heavenly hereafter in any connection with their anesthetics. Could this 50-yr-old dentist have possibly been divining his own future? While “merry-making” at his church’s Fourth of July celebration in 1905, Dr. Chamberlain collapsed in front of 800 of his fellow parishioners and presumably joined the angels…. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
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An angel guides a young woman skyward (upper image) in this image from the obverse of a trade card from the Ben Z. Swanson Collection of the Wood Library-Museum. On the card’s reverse, one box (lower) cites two of the weekdays that dental and “nitrous oxide gas” services would be provided at New Egypt, New Jersey, by George Whitehill Chamberlain, D.D.S. (1855 to 1905). In the early 1900s, understandably, most American physicians and dentists shied away from advertising death, dying, or the heavenly hereafter in any connection with their anesthetics. Could this 50-yr-old dentist have possibly been divining his own future? While “merry-making” at his church’s Fourth of July celebration in 1905, Dr. Chamberlain collapsed in front of 800 of his fellow parishioners and presumably joined the angels…. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)

An angel guides a young woman skyward (upper image) in this image from the obverse of a trade card from the Ben Z. Swanson Collection of the Wood Library-Museum. On the card’s reverse, one box (lower) cites two of the weekdays that dental and “nitrous oxide gas” services would be provided at New Egypt, New Jersey, by George Whitehill Chamberlain, D.D.S. (1855 to 1905). In the early 1900s, understandably, most American physicians and dentists shied away from advertising death, dying, or the heavenly hereafter in any connection with their anesthetics. Could this 50-yr-old dentist have possibly been divining his own future? While “merry-making” at his church’s Fourth of July celebration in 1905, Dr. Chamberlain collapsed in front of 800 of his fellow parishioners and presumably joined the angels…. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
View largeDownload slide

An angel guides a young woman skyward (upper image) in this image from the obverse of a trade card from the Ben Z. Swanson Collection of the Wood Library-Museum. On the card’s reverse, one box (lower) cites two of the weekdays that dental and “nitrous oxide gas” services would be provided at New Egypt, New Jersey, by George Whitehill Chamberlain, D.D.S. (1855 to 1905). In the early 1900s, understandably, most American physicians and dentists shied away from advertising death, dying, or the heavenly hereafter in any connection with their anesthetics. Could this 50-yr-old dentist have possibly been divining his own future? While “merry-making” at his church’s Fourth of July celebration in 1905, Dr. Chamberlain collapsed in front of 800 of his fellow parishioners and presumably joined the angels…. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)

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George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., Honorary Curator and Laureate of the History of Anesthesia, Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, Illinois, and Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. UJYC@aol.com.

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2019