Nomenclature Chimique

Isabelle Stengers and Judith Schlanger, Les concepts scientifiques Invention etpouvoir (Paris Editions La Decouverte, 1988) and Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, A propos de methode de nomenclature chimique Esquisse historique suivie du texte de 1787 (Paris Centre de Documentation Sciences Humaines, 1983). 

A Propos de methode de nomenclature chimique Esquisse historique suivie du texte de 1787. Paris Centre de Documentation Sciences Humaines, 1983. 

In 1787 Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet, and Fourcroy introduced in their Methode de nomenclature chimique the terms carbone, for the element carbon, instead of charbon (charcoal) and acide carbonique (carbon dioxide) instead of air fixe ( fixed air ). 

NE OF THE CENTRAL THEMES of this book is to show how the development of the concept of neutral salt in the eighteenth century made possible the creation of a compositional nomenclature by L.-B. Guyton de Morveau in 1782, which when adapted to the new chemistry of Lavoisier led to the creation of a definition of simple body the material element. The second major theme then describes how this new chemistry led to the final development of modern chemical composition in its atomic structure introduced by John Dalton. His atomic theory contained the symbolic operators that furnished the most convenient representation of the material composition of bodies that had become available by the end of the eighteenth century. The idea of an individual atomic weight unique to each element depended most immediately upon the concept of simple body, introduced by the authors of the M thode de nomenclature chimique in 1787. The new nomenclature was itself based on the principle that a name of a body ought to correspond to its composition. 

A.-L. Lavoisier, Memoire sur la necessite de reformer et du perfectionner la nomenclature de la chemie, published in Methode de nomenclature chimique, propose par MM, de MorveaUy Lavoisier Berthollet, et de Fourcroy (Paris, 1787). Quotation from Oeuvres de Lavoisiery vol. 5, 354-364 at 361. 

Rapport sur la nouvelle nomenclature extrait de registres de TAcademie Royale des Sciences, signed by Baume, Cadet, d Arcet, and Sage. The report, dated 13 June 1787, was printed in Mhhode de nomenclature chimique (Paris, 1787), 238-252. Quotation from 248. 

The System of Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier, and Co-Workers The first attempt toward a convenient nomenclature belongs to Guyton de Morveau. His pioneer work led to publication in 1787 of Meihode de Nomenclature Chimique, written in collaboration with Lavoisier. Berthollei. and Fourcroy, which proved to be a landmark in the development of chemistry. 

Mlthode de nomenclature chimique proposie par MM. de Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet, et de Fourcroy, Paris, 1787 London, 1799 O. Guttmann, Journ. Soc. Chem. Ini., 20. 7, 1901. 

B. Bensaude-Vincent, Methode de Nomenclature Chimique [Par] L. B. Guyton de Morveau A. L. Lavoisier, C. L. Berthollet et A. F. de Fourcroy, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1994. 

C. Viel, Guyton de Morveau, pere de la nomenclature chimique (1737-1816) , in Lavoisier et la Revolution Chimique. Actes du colloque tenu a l occasion du Bicenntenaire de la Publication du Traite Elementaire de Chimie 1789, ed. M. Goupil, P. Bret and F. Masson, SABIX, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, 1992, pp. 129-170. 

In Baron Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau Methode de nomenclature chimique (p. 16)... 

See B. Bensaude-Vincent s introduction to L. B. Guyton de Morveau, A. L. Lavoisier, C. L. Berthollet, and A. E de Fourcroy, Methode de nomenclature chimique (Seuil, 1994). See also W. R. Albury, The Logic of Condillac and the Structure of French Chemical and Biological Theory, 1780-1801, Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1972 John G. McEvoy, The Enlightenment and the Chemical Revolution, in Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. R. Woolhouse (Kluwer, 1988). 

Fourcroy, Antoine-Fran9ois de. Memoire pour servir Texplication du tableau de nomenclature (1787). 109-122 in Methode de nomenclature chimique (Paris Seuil, 1994). 

Guyton de Morveau, Louis-Bernard. Memoire sur le developpement des principes de la nomenclature methodique, lu a FAcademie, le 2 mai 1787. 75-108 in Methode de nomenclature chimique (Seuil, 1994). 

Berthollet, Morveau, and Fourcroy, decided to formulate a new nomenclature for chemistry based on Lavoisier s work. They believed that to reform chemistry, it had to be reformed completely, with a new language of chemistry for a new system of chemistry. Their work was published in 1787 as Methode de nomenclature chimique. It is from this work that the modern system of naming chemicals developed. It introduced word endings like -ic to represent acids and -ide to indicate oxides. 

Condillac, Lavoisier and Nomenclature Reform Contrary to the historiography of the crucial year , which focused on Lavoisier s early training in experimental physics and Rouellian chemistry, the historians of science William Albury, Marco Beretta and Trevor Levere located the core of the Chemical Revolution in the epistemological and linguistic principles underlying the Methode de Nomenclature Chimique, published in 1787, and the Traite Elementaire de Chimie, which appeared two years later. Influenced by Crosland s... 

During most of 1788 Lavoisier wrote his masterpiece TraM Eldmentaire de Chimie and it was published in early 1789 (see Figure 211). The project had started as an attempt to provide an accessible introduction to chemistry, evolved to update the 1787 Mdthode de nomenclature chimique and became the most important treatise in the history of chemistry. It included the first modern list of chemical elements (33 in number, including the imponderables light and... 

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