English decade

This success of the atomic theory is not surprising to a historian of science. The atomic theory was first deduced from the laws of chemical composition. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, an English scientist named John Dalton wondered why chemical compounds display such simple weight relations. He proposed that perhaps each element consists of discrete particles and perhaps each compound is composed of molecules that can be formed only by a unique combination of these particles. Suddenly many facts of chemistry became understandable in terms of this proposal. The continued success of the atomic theory in correlating a multitude of new observations accounts for its survival. Today, many other types of evidence can be cited to support the atomic postulate, but the laws of chemical composition still provide the cornerstone for our belief in this theory of the structure of matter. 

This was a key work of 17th century alchemy. It was written in Latin by Jean d Espagnet as Enchiridion physicae restitutae... and the first edition was issued at Paris in 1623. A number of editions were issued over the next decades and it was included in a number of alchemical compendia. An English translation, translated by Elias Ashmole, was printed in 1650, in Arthur Dee s Fasciculus chemicus or chymical collections "... 

Taxol was the most triumphant new anticancer drug developed in the last few decades. It resulted from a drive to screen thousands of synthesized compounds and plant extracts, financed by the National Cancer Institute (Georg et al. 1994, Suffness 1995, Goodman and Walsh 2001). Taxol is extracted from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, or Taxus brevifoli, found in the Pacific Northwest, and has been proven effective against intractable breast and ovarian cancers. It is now produced by semi-synthetic methods from the needles of the common ornamental tree English Yew, or Taxus baccata. We will discuss taxol in greater detail in Chapter 2. 

However, despite Davy s writings on the subject, nitrous oxide had no serious medical use for another four decades. Instead, nitrous, now nicknamed laughing gas, enjoyed popularity as a way for the English upper classes to entertain themselves at social gatherings. Among those who regularly inhaled the gas for its... 

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