Free Radicals: How a Group of Romantic Experimenters Gave Birth to Psychedelic Science

by Mike Jay

The stranger-than-fiction story of the Enlightenment visionaries who discovered the unexpected effects of inhaling nitrous oxide

At the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol, England, founded in the closing years of the eighteenth century, dramatic experiments with gases precipitated not only a revolution in scientific medicine but also in the history of ideas. Guided by the energy of maverick doctor Thomas Beddoes, the institution was both...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300282613
• ISBN13: 9780300282610
• Release Date: August 2025
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 294 Pages