The Chemical Revolution as History

Combustion has a very long history. From antiquity up to the middle ages, fire along with earth, water, and air was considered to be one of the four basic elements in the universe. However, with the work of Antoine Lavoisier, one of the initiators of the Chemical Revolution and discoverer of the Law of Conservation of Mass (1785), its importance was reduced. In 1775-1777, Lavoisier was the first to postulate that the key to combustion was oxygen. He realized that the newly isolated constituent of air (Joseph Priestley in England and Carl Scheele in Sweden, 1772-1774) was an element he then named it and formulated a new definition of combustion, as the process of chemical reactions with oxygen. In precise, quantitative experiments he laid the foundations for the new theory, which gained wide acceptance over a relatively short period. 

As is well known, Lavoisier s attacks on the phlogistic doctrine finally accomplished its abandonment, offering in its place a new perspective so totally different that it was commonly called the anti-phlogistic chemistry. This accomplishment was so dramatic that his contemporaries, supporters and opponents alike, recognized it as revolutionary. Two hundred years later the chemical revolution became one of the most studied events in the history of science. Henry Guerlac has been one of the most stimulating authors of Lavoisier s work in the post-war years of this century. His book Lavoisier — The Crucial Year s generated much additional study of Lavoisier, especially by his own students at Cornell University. ... 

Finally, several older histories of chemistry have recently appeared as reprints. One is a classic from 1866 and 1869, the famous Histoire de la chimie of Ferdinand Hoefer, reprinted in 1980.26 Another is the Clows classic of 1952, The Chemical Revolution.27 It does not deal with the Lavoisierian transformation of chemistry (as might have been expected) but with the revolutionary changes in applied chemistry that made the Industrial Revolution possible. 

---