Foreign Chemistry

Antoine Henri Lavoisier

Antoine Lavoisier is also known as “The Father of Modern Chemistry”. He was a French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology. He stated the first version of the Law of Conversion of mass, recognized and named oxygen in 1778 and also recognized and named hydrogen in 1783. He proved that oxygen played the major role in the differences in weight associated with combustion, disproving the accepted view of the Phlogiston Theory. He helped construct the metric system, wrote the first extensive list of elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature.

Joseph Priestly

Nitrous oxide ("laughing gas") was first synthesized by English chemist and natural philosopher Joseph Priestley. Priestley describes the preparation of "nitrous air diminished" by heating iron filings dampened with nitric acid in Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air. 3 vols. London, (1775). Priestley was delighted with his discovery: "I have now discovered an air five or six times as good as common air... nothing I ever did has surprised me more, or is more satisfactory." But unlike Humphry Davy, Priestley didn't try inhaling gas to explore its psychoactive effects.

Priestley further isolated and described the properties of carbon dioxide, hydrochloric acid, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and "dephlogisticated air". He corresponded with Antoine Lavoisier, who debunked phlogiston theory and re-named "dephlogisticated air" as oxygen. Priestley identified the gases involved in plant respiration, and observed photosynthesis. He also discovered that graphite is a conductor of electricity; and invented a very drinkable beverage of carbonated water, i.e. soda pop.

In the 18th century, doctors had very little idea of what caused disease. Its symptoms could sometimes be palliated, but cures were rare. So doctors and other assorted medical men eagerly experimented with the new gases and the vapours of volatile liquids to discover if they conferred any therapeutic benefits, especially for respiratory disease. One of the most prominent investigators was Thomas Beddoes, founder of the Pneumatic Institution (1798).

Dorothy Hodgkin

The sole Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 1964, she was the third woman and the first Englishwoman to receive it. It was given for her work in X-ray crystallography, determining the structures of steroids, penicillin, and vitamin B₁₂; she later determined the structure of insulin in collaboration with Chinese scientists. Hodgkin always pushed the X-ray method to the limits of its capabilities; the B₁₂ structure, for example, was by far the most complex that had been worked out at the time, long before current computer methods were developed. She went to Oxford University in 1928 when few women studied science, did her Ph.D. at Cambridge and returned to Oxford for most of her career. She helped scientists in India, China and Africa, and worked for peace as president of the "Pugwash" conferences and the BAAS.

William Ramsay

Extracted 5 noble gases from the air

• Argon-inactive
• Neon-New
• Xenon-Stanger
• Krypton- Hidden
• Helium- Sun

Louis Pasteur

Worked on fermentation and decay a led to the development of the germ theory of disease and to the sterilization of food through the use of heat.