George Poe (1846-1914)

George Poe (May 8, 1846 – February 3, 1914) was a pioneer of chemical technology and artificial respiration. He was the first to manufacture nitrous oxide for commercial use.

Biography
He was the son of George Poe, Sr. and Elizabeth Ross Ellicott. He had the following siblings: Harriet Poe (1839-?); Fanny Poe (1841-?); Elizabeth Poe (1844-?); Lucretia Poe (1850-?); Mary Poe (1853-?) and Mary Elizabeth Ellicott Poe (1874-?). Around 1885 he married Margaret Amy Wallace.

He attended the Virginia Military Institute, and after fighting in the American Civil War, Poe built the Poe Chemical Works in Trenton, New Jersey which included the first plant in America for mass-producing liquid nitrous oxide. By 1883 he was supplying about 5000 dentists with laughing gas.

Using the resources of his large factory, Poe experimented with oxygen cylinders and tubing and found that he could resuscitate rats and rabbits that he had apparently suffocated to death. In 1889, he undertook a nationwide tour, amazing his audiences. He claimed that his apparatus could revive humans who had drowned or been poisoned by gas lamps, and should be available in all hotels and lodging houses to deal with gas poisoning. This attracted wide attention in the press.

Illness curtailed his activities. By 1900, he was nearly blind and partly paralyzed. However, in 1907 he began another tour. He gained fresh publicity in 1909 when a man called Moses Goodman was revived using his apparatus. Again, his health prevented him from doing much, and other inventors developed their own artificial respirators. Nevertheless, when he died, the obituaries said that he had been nominated for a Nobel Prize.