From Colton's guess to Andrews' table to Bunnell's paper to Spencer's card: Misleading the public about nitrous oxide's safety.

Famous for pioneering the oxygenation of nitrous-oxide anesthetics, Chicago surgeon Edmund Andrews trusted the Manhattan-based Colton Dental Association's claim that they had conducted 75,000 nitrous-oxide anesthetics without a single mortality. Those statistics were cited in Andrews' 1870 journal article on anesthetic risks and then, remarkably, advertised on the business cards of dentist James M. Spencer, Jr., of Gouverneur, New York.