Power of Imagination.
Reading edition
An amusing incident recently occurred at Williams College, which is thus related by a correspondent of the Springfield Gazette:
The professor of chemistry, while administering, in the course of his lectures, the protoxide of nitrogen, or, as it is commonly called, laughing gas, in order to ascertain how great an influence the imagination had in producing the effects consequent on respiring it, secretly filled the India rubber gas-bag with common air instead of gas. It was taken without suspicion, and the effects, if anything, were more powerful than upon those who had really breathed the pure gas. One complained that it produced nausea and dizziness, another immediately manifested pugilistic propensities, and before he could be restrained, tore in pieces the coat of one of the bystanders, while the third exclaimed, 'this is life. I never enjoyed it before.' The laughter that followed the exposure of this gaseous trick may be imagined.