In Bushnell Park there are only a couple
of statues & while I knew who Minerva
was I wasn't sure about Horace Wells
& I wanted to know because the plaque
underneath him says The Discoverer of
something I couldn't see & I didn't think
anyone in Hartford had ever discovered
anything except for guns & drugs & when
I looked him up I found out I was right
because the thing Horace Wells discovered
was anesthesia at some kind of show
where a bunch of people inhaled nitrous
on stage & then ran around like idiots
& when one of them hurt his leg he kept
running & seemed to feel nothing
& Wells who was a dentist thought maybe
he could use this so he got some nitrous
& put himself under & had a tooth pulled
without any pain which he thought would
make him famous so he went to Boston
to put on an exhibition & called someone
out of the crowd to go under but the man
didn't breathe from the bag long enough
& felt something & screamed & everyone
heard it & no one else would volunteer
& no one wanted to believe Wells except
for William Morton who stole the idea
using ether instead of nitrous & got patients
& patents & a job at Harvard & maybe
Wells never knew it but credit in the books
goes to Morton or maybe he did know it
because Wells sold his practice & left
his wife & went to New York where
he went mad & went to jail for throwing
sulfuric acid at prostitutes & in his cell
inhaled chloroform from a rag & cut open
his groin vein & died & the only people
now who think he discovered anything are
some people in Hartford who can't read
the sign & probably don't care what it is.
