Free Radicals

How a Group of Romantic Experimenters Gave Birth to Psychedelic Science

By: Mike Jay

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Paperback | 2 October 2025 | Edition Number 1

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416 Pages

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19.8 x 12.8 x 2.6

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The story of the circle of scientists, poets and dissidents who discovered laughing gas-and forever changed our understanding of the mind

An unlikely circle of doctors, chemists, poets and political radicals formed a group round the maverick physician Thomas Beddoes. In the closing years of the eighteenth century, he founded the first modern medical institute, the Pneumatic Institute in Bristol. When he and its researchers discovered the mind-altering properties of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, what was a pioneering public health initiative became a freewheeling exploration of consciousness.

Celebrated historian Mike Jay tells the story of Dr. Beddoes and his group of unorthodox experimenters. With the support of Erasmus Darwin and poets Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a laboratory designed by James Watt and funded by Thomas Wedgwood, and the self-experimenting chemistry assistant Humphrey Davy, Beddoes precipitated a revolution in scientific investigation.

Free Radicals for the first time charts the intellectual ferment of the Institute and reveals its crucial influence-as the crucible of the Romantic movement, and the birthplace of modern drug culture.

About the Author

Mike Jay has written extensively on scientific and medical history and contributes regularly to the London Review of Books and the Wall Street Journal. His previous books on the history of drugs include High Society, Mescaline and Psychonauts.

Industry Reviews

"Fascinating, exciting, entertaining. . . . Jay's description of the wild highs induced by nitrous oxide is a tour de force, and so is his account of the bad trips, and the no-trips, it soon also turned out to deliver. . . . [A] superb book, learned and full of insight. . . . I can hardly think of a bad word to say against it."-John Barrell, London Review of Books

"Jay wonderfully restores Beddoes's reputation as a courageous and painstaking scientist, physician, revolutionary firebrand and social reformer-truly, one of the giants of rational thought."-Jay Rath, Fortean Times

"Brilliantly researched. . . . Fans of scientific biography and history of science, as well as history buffs in general, will be engrossed by Jay's marvelous study of an unusual man and the political and intellectual ferment of his time."-Publishers Weekly

"The book opens a window on a fascinating time in medical history."-David Knight, Social History of Medicine

"Excellent and eminently readable. . . . Mike Jay has succeeded in capturing the excitement of the times. . . . A thoroughly inspiring, informative and enjoyable read."-Gabriel Scally, International Journal of Epidemiology

"A brilliantly researched book and written in a lively style." -Sharon Ruston, Times Higher Education

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