[1] His parents were well-educated and affluent landowners, which allowed him to attend private schools in New Hampshire and Amherst, Massachusetts.

[3] At age 23, Wells published a booklet "An Essay on Teeth" in which he advocated for his ideas in preventive dentistry, particularly for the use of a toothbrush.

[2][4] After he completed dental training in Boston, Wells opened his own office in Hartford, Connecticut on April 4, 1836.

[citation needed] Wells first witnessed the effects of nitrous oxide on December 10, 1844, when he and his wife Elizabeth attended a demonstration by Gardner Quincy Colton billed in the Hartford Courant as "A Grand Exhibition of the Effects Produced by Inhaling Nitrous Oxide, Exhilarating, or Laughing Gas."

From this demonstration, Wells realized the potential for the analgesic properties of nitrous oxide, and met with Colton about conducting trials.

[6][7] The following day, Wells conducted a trial on himself by inhaling nitrous oxide and having John Riggs extract a tooth.

In January 1845 he chose to go to Boston where he had previously studied dentistry, and his former student and associate William Morton resided.

[11] On April 7, 1845, Wells advertised in the Hartford Courant that he was going to dissolve his dental practice, and referred all his patients to Riggs, the man who had extracted his tooth.

Following Morton's demonstration, Wells published a letter accounting his successful trials in 1844 in an attempt to claim the discovery of anesthesia.

[1] Wells definitively ended his dental practice in late 1845 and began selling shower baths for which he received a patent on November 4, 1846.

He traveled to Paris in early 1847, where he petitioned the Academie Royale de Medicine and the Parisian Medical Society for recognition in the discovery of anesthesia.

[14] He committed suicide in his cell on January 24, slitting his left femoral artery with a razor after inhaling an analgesic dose of chloroform.

[17] Twelve days before his death, the Parisian Medical Society voted and honored him as the first to discover and perform surgical operations without pain.