Antiphlogistic chemistry

If the 17th century can be said to usher in modern physics, with Newton as its dominating name, the 18th century is the period when chemistry definitely makes its debut on the scientific scene. There are several important actors here but none that can compare with Lavoisier and his introduction of the antiphlogistic chemistry. His elucidation of the true nature of combustion and the role of oxygen in this process is certainly one of the most revolutionary events in the history of chemistry. At the same time it can be seen as the birth of biochemistry. 

Carl Axel Arrhenius (1757-1824) did not care much for the military profession (he was an officer of the engineer corps), but was passionately interested in chemistry and mineralogy. He frequently visited the laboratory of the Mining Academy. During his stay in Paris he attended the lectures of Lavoisier and Fouicroy. He was one of the first champions in Sweden of the new antiphlogistic chemistry based on oxygen. When in Sweden, he attended the lectures of Berzelius and also worked in his laboratory. He terminated his military career as lieutenant-colonel, but parallelly he also made a remarkable scientific careen he was elected a member of the Swedish Academy of Science (Anonymous 1824). 

Once these difficulties had been overcome, the new theory began to gain ground. Joseph Black was an early convert, and he was teaching the antiphlogistic chemistry to his students at Edinburgh before 1784. The French chemists de Morveau, Claude Louis Berthollet (1748-1822) and Antoine Francois de Fourcroy (1755-1809) accepted the theory in 1785 or soon after, and once won over they collaborated with Lavoisier in the reform of chemical nomenclature. 

Under the new system, calxes became oxides, oil of vitriol became sulphuric acid and the other oxyacid of sulphur was called sulphurous acid. The corresponding salts became the sulphates and the sulphites. The new nomenclature helped to publicise the new antiphlogistic chemistry everyone who wanted to read a paper that used the new nomenclature had to think in terms of Lavoisier s oxygen theory. In spite of recent revisions in chemical nomenclature, most names proposed by Lavoisier and his associates are comprehensible to the chemist of today. 

The book was published in 1789 as Traite elementaire de Chimie and was soon translated into other European languages, appearing in English under the title Elements of Chemistry. The appearance of the Traite is a landmark in the history of chemistry its importance is comparable with that of Newton s Principia in the realm of mechanics. It was aimed at those studying chemistry for the first time, but the new chemistry was so different from its predecessor that most of Lavoisier s readers were beginners. The book did much to popularise the new antiphlogistic chemistry, and in 1791 Lavoisier wrote All young chemists adopt the theory and from that I conclude that the revolution in chemistry is come to pass . 

After the death of Lavoisier, the two leading figures in the French scientific community were Berthollet and Laplace. Both had participated in the informal gatherings that had taken place at Lavoisier s home at the Arsenal at which the new antiphlogistic chemistry had been discussed. In the introduction to the Traite Lavoisier acknowledged the importance of these discussions, and mentioned Berthollet and Laplace as participants. 

The reception of antiphlogistic chemistry in Germany, the birthplace of the phlogiston theory, is interesting. Kopp thought the reception of the new... 

Heinrich Friedrich Link (Hildesheim, 2 February 1767-Berlin, i January 1851), professor of natural history, botany and chemistry in Rostock (1792), of chemistry and botany in Breslau (1811), and of botany in Berlin (1815), published on botany, geology, and chemistry.He discussed phlogiston, chemical affinity, Berthollet s theory of affinity, and attraction and affinity. He investigated the action of sulphuric acid on vegetable matter, double salts and acid sulphates, chemical reactions of solids produced by trituration, considered fluidity, solidity, and the solution of bodies, and made some of the earliest observations on the mode of separation of crystals from solutions, in some cases finding that they first formed as globulites . He published a book on antiphlogistic chemistry. ... 

Since the Journal de Physique was opposed to the new doctrines, Lavoisier participated in founding in 1789 the Annales de Chimie at the suggestion of Adet, in which papers on the antiphlogistic chemistry were published. 

Description du blanchiment des toiles des fUs par I acide muriatique oxyg6n6 Arm. Chim., 1789, ii, 151-90 1790, vi, 204, 210 separ., Paris, 1795 the preparation from salt, manganese dioxide and somewhat diluted sulphuric acid is described. Arm. Chim., 1789, ii, 165 f. the account is written in terms of antiphlogistic chemistry, which thus became faixiiliar in... 

A. Lundgren, Anders Gustaf Ekeberg, the Antiphlogistic Chemistry and the Swedish Scene, Berzelius Society, Serie no 5, The Royal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden, ISSN 1103-5129,1997 Larry D. Cunningham, Tantalum chapter in Mineral Commodity Summaries 2003, uses, Reston, VA, pp. 168-169 and Columbium (Niobium) and Tantalum chapter in Minerals Yearbook, 2001, Vol. I, Metals and Minerals, USGS, Re-... 

Fourcroy was one of the authors of Methode de nomenclature chemique, which in 1787 expressed the leading ideas in Lavoisier s new antiphlogistic chemistry. His own modem t -... 

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