Nitrous and ether were among the first substances whose psychedelic effects were widely publicized. Benjamin Paul Blood, an American mystic in the turn of the 19th century, was the forefather of psychedelia. He wrote elonquent pamphlets on the subject of anaesthetic revelation he obtained from ether. His writings again inspired the eminent psychologist and pragmatic philosopher William James to conduct
experiments with nitrous.
"There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge."
-Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas