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Early Opposition to the Phlogiston Theory: Two Anonymous Attacks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Carleton Perrin
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Extract

For French chemistry the early 1770's were lively years of discovery and controversy. Two neglected areas of research were opened up in 1772 with the publication of the Digressions académiques by Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau and with the first knowledge of later British pneumatic chemistry. Guyton's book established the general fact of weight-gain in metals upon calcination, thereby raising the problem of reconciling this gain with simultaneous loss of phlogiston. The spread of pneumatic chemistry, which proceeded rapidly in 1773, stimulated a renewed interest in the nature of air and its part in chemical composition. It was, of course, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier who perceived a relationship between these two developments—one which he believed would revolutionize the current understanding of chemical processes. In 1772 Lavoisier began the series of investigations which culminated in his Opuscules physiques et chimiques (1774), in which he demonstrated that weight-gain in both calcination and combustion is correlated with absorption of an equal weight of air.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , December 1970 , pp. 128 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1970

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References

1 For the background of Lavoisier's work on combustion see Guerlac, Henry: Lavoisier, The Crucial Year (Ithaca, N.Y., 1961)Google Scholar. A. N. Meldrum discusses the early stages of Lavoisier's research in his The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Science—The First Phase (Calcutta, n.d. [1930]).Google Scholar

2 “Précis de la doctrine de M. de Morveau”, Observations sur la Physique, ii (1773), 281–291Google Scholar; and “Discours sur le phlogistique”, ibid., iii (1774), 185–200. Hereafter they will be designated as the “Précis” and the “Discours”, respectively.

3 M. Berthelot first suggested Lavoisier's authorship of the “Discours” in his La Révolution Chimique—Lavoisier (Paris, 1890), 54Google Scholar. G. Bouchard offered similar arguments for the “Précis” in Guyton-Morveau, Chimiste et Conventionnel (Paris, 1938), 165Google Scholar. Both anonymous articles are included by Duveen, D. I. and Klickstein, H. S. in A Bibliography of the Works of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, 1743–1794 (London, 1954), pp. 28, 29.Google Scholar

4 Annals of Science, ii (1937), 401Google Scholar. To my knowledge no alternative candidate has been advanced as author of the “Précis”. In his more recent A History of Chemistry, vol. iii (London, 1962)Google Scholar, Partington makes conflicting statements, referring to the “Précis” as (1) the work of “an anonymous critic” (p. 399), (2) “a review and summary by Rozier” (p. 519), and (3) “a long abstract and criticism of de Morveau's theory by De La Métherie” (p. 612). I take these to reflect note-card problems rather than serious assertions. Rozier and, later, De La Métherie were editors of the journal in which the articles appeared.

5 This I take from Partington, , op. cit. (4), 399Google Scholar. I have not been able to locate Speter's arguments favouring Bayen.

6 Annals of Science, vii (1951), 102.Google Scholar

7 Speter, Max, “Kritisches über die Entstehung von Lavoisiers System”, Zeitschrift für angewandte Chemie, xxxix (1926), 581.Google Scholar

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9 Ibid., 290.

10 “Discours”, 194Google Scholar. Homberg had found sulphur to be composed of four principles: earth, salt and inflammable matter (in nearly equal portions) plus a little metal; see his “Essai de l'analyse du souffre commun” in Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences (1703), 31.Google Scholar

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13 An earlier anonymous review of Guyton's dissertation had appeared in the Journal de médecine, xxxviii (1772), 195–220.Google Scholar This review criticized the notion of essential volatility but did not question phlogiston, itself. The earlier review (probably by A. Roux, the editor) is apparently independent of the two articles in question here.

14 Macquer, P. J., Dictionnaire de Chymie (Paris, 1766), vol. ii, 314.Google Scholar For the curious history of confusion over the key phenomenon of reduction of mercury calx by heat alone, see my paper “Prelude to Lavoisier's theory of calcination”, Ambix, xvi (1969), 140–151.Google Scholar

15 “Discours”, 197–198.Google Scholar The three mercury compounds (précipité per se, arcane corallin, and turbith minéral) are, respectively, the red oxide (from the calcined metal), the same (prepared by heating the precipitated nitrate) and basic mercuric sulphate.

16 Digressions académiques (Dijon, 1762 [sic], should read 1772), 231.Google Scholar Guyton had written: “…le précipité per se, l'arcane corallin & le turbith minéral lavé, sont de véritables chaux de mercure … la réduction de ces chaux se fait sans contact des charbons, sans addition de matière qui puisse rendre à la terre du métal le phlogistique qu'il a perdu: voilà ce qui jusqu'à présent l'a fait regarder comme inaltérable.…”

17 “Mémoire sur la manière de brûler ou de distiller les vins…” De la Fermentation des Vins … Mémoires qui ont concouru pour le Prix proposé en 1766, par la Société Royale d'Agriculture de Limoges… (Lyon, 1770). I wish to thank Professor Henry Guerlac for bringing this work to my attention.

18 “Discours”, 185, footnote.Google Scholar

19 See Lavoisier, 's “Réflexions sur le phlogistique”, Oeuvres de Lavoisier, vol. ii, 623–655Google Scholar, read in 1785 and published in 1786.

20 Macquer, , Dictionnaire de Chymie (Paris, 1778), vol. i in 8vo, 349.Google Scholar

21 In his “Sur la combustion en général” (Oeuvres, vol. ii, 226)Google Scholar, Lavoisier referred to his early, timid doubts concerning Stahl's doctrine. His reference was to a passage of the Opuscules (Oeuvres, vol. i, 612–613)Google Scholar in which he suggested that the purpose of charcoal in reductions might be to supply phlogiston or matter of fire not to the metal but to the fixed air which is formed. His inability to account for the role of charcoal prevented Lavoisier from rejecting phlogiston outright, as the anonymous author had done.

22 When Lavoisier presented his early results on combustion to the Academy, it was objected that the observed effects (diminution in volume of the air used and gain in weight of the combustible) might be due to absorption of atmospheric moisture. Lavoisier, as we know from his laboratory registers, tested and rejected this hypothesis in the summer of 1773. (See Berthelot, M., La Révolution chimique, Lavoisier, 247)Google Scholar. Lavoisier returned to this question in his Opuscules (Oeuvres, vol. i, 645Google Scholar) when discussing the combustion of phosphorus. After presenting results of experiments on the effect of water vapour, he concluded: “Que la plus grande partie de la substance absorbée par le phosphore pendant sa combustion, est autre chose que de l'eau.…”

23 Brisson, M. J., The Physical Principles of Chemistry, translated from the French (London, 1801), p. vi.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., p. vii.

25 The extent of collaboration between Trudaine and Lavoisier is illustrated in documents published by Fric, R.: Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xii (1959), 137–168.Google Scholar

26 Introduction à l'étude des corps naturels tirés du règne minéral (Paris, 1771), 2 volsGoogle Scholar, and Introduction … du règne végétal (Paris, 1773), 2 vols.Google Scholar

27 “Mémoire sur quelques circonstances qui accompagnent la décomposition de Sel Ammoniac…, Mémoires … par divers savons, ix (1780), 563–575.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., 364.

29 “The collaboration of Bucquet and Lavoisier”, Ambix, xiii (1966), 74–83.Google Scholar

30 For Turgot's reaction to Guyton's book and his anticipation of Lavoisier, see H. Guerlac's account of this fascinating episode in Lavoisier, The Crucial Year, chapter 5.

31 Hereafter referred to as “Introduction”. This work appeared in the Supplément à l'Histoire Naturelle. The treatise on the elements is contained in Supplément, Tome i (Paris, 1774), while the experimental part extends into Tome ii (Paris, 1775). The work, although composed before the anonymous articles, appeared several weeks after the “Discours”.

32 Kopp, Hermann, Geschichte der Chemie, vol. iii (Braunschweig, 1845), 118.Google Scholar

33 Speter, Max, op. cit. (7), 581.Google Scholar

34 Supplément à l'Histoire Naturelle, Tome i (Paris, 1774), 92.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 44.

36 Ibid., 75.

37 Observations sur la physique, iii (1774), 129–145 and 280–295Google Scholar; v (1775), 147–160; and vi (1775), 487–500.

38 Observations, iii (1774), 281.Google Scholar

39 Encyclopédie méthodique. Chimie, Tome iii, 455.Google Scholar

40 Observations, iii (1774), 284, note 1 (my italics).Google Scholar

41 Bayen, P., Observations, vi (1775), 499, note 1.Google Scholar

42 The éloge by Parmentier is included in the posthumous Opuscules, p. xlvi.Google Scholar

43 Venel, G. F., Encyclopédie, article Feu (chimie), Tome vi, in fol. (Paris, 1756).Google Scholar

44 Lavoisier's close association with the physicists of the Academy is detailed in Professor Guerlac's paper on the collaboration of Laplace with Lavoisier—summarized at the XIIth International Congress of the History of Science, Paris, 1968.

45 My colleague Jerry Gough has found some interesting notes and reflections by Lavoisier upon his reading of the German chemists J. F. Meyer and J. T. Eller in 1766. See his note “Lavoisier's early career in science—An examination of some new evidence”, British Journal for the History of Science, iv (1968–1969), 52–57.Google Scholar