Dephlogisticated Air

-Oxygen Bottles on Mount Everest

Oxygen masks: paramedics slap them on heart-attack victims.

Mountain climbers use them as they scale the highest peaks.

Flight attendants demonstrate their use in case of an in-flight emergency.

People in war-ravaged areas wear them to protect themselves against gas attacks; others wear them on the busy streets of our largest cities as protection from inhaling the polluted air.

We all need oxygen to exist — people, animals and plants alike.

On this date in 1774, Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen. Noting its effectiveness in sparking combustion, he called the gas "dephlogisticated air," demonstrating his belief in phlogiston.

Quote: "Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might see nothing very extraordinary in the process." — Joseph Priestley


Richard

What a great word!

from http://www.reference.com/browse/Dephlogisticated+air

"Phlogiston theory
Robert Hooke, Ole Borch, Mikhail Lomonosov, and Pierre Bayen all produced oxygen in experiments in the 17th century but none of them recognized it as an element. This may have been in part due to the prevalence of the philosophy of combustion and corrosion called the phlogiston theory, which was then the favored explanation of those processes.

Established in 1667 by the German alchemist J. J. Becher, and modified by the chemist Georg Ernst Stahl by 1731, phlogiston theory stated that all combustible materials were made of two parts. One part, called phlogiston, was given off when the substance containing it was burned, while the dephlogisticated part was thought to be its true form, or calx.

Highly combustible materials that leave little residue, such as wood or coal, were thought to be made mostly of phlogiston; whereas non-combustible substances that corrode, such as iron, contained very little. Air did not play a role in phlogiston theory, nor were any initial quantitative experiments conducted to test the idea; instead, it was based on observations of what happens when something burns, that most common objects appear to become lighter and seem to lose something in the process. The fact that a substance like wood actually gains overall weight in burning was hidden by the buoyancy of the gaseous combustion products. Indeed one of the first clues that the phlogiston theory was incorrect was that metals, too, gain weight in rusting (when they were supposedly losing phlogiston)."

".....an experiment was conducted by the British clergyman Joseph Priestley on August 1, 1774 focused sunlight on mercuric oxide (HgO) inside a glass tube, which liberated a gas he named 'dephlogisticated air'. He noted that candles burned brighter in the gas and that a mouse was more active and lived longer while breathing it. After breathing the gas himself, he wrote: "The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air, but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards." ....."

That is a mouthful!
connie

Phlogiston

Sounds like something I get when I have a cold or sinus condition.

Ah, but where do you think the Joseph Priestly Museum is? Do you think this great scholar might be memorialized in... London? Paris? Rome? Vienna?

No; the Joseph Priestly House is in Northumberland, PA, population 3714.

"...Priestley was also a controversial figure whose views were so odious to some of his countrymen that his house, Fair Hill in Birmingham, was burned in a riot, and he and his family left England. Priestley spent the last ten years of his life in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, where he continued his work in science, religion, and education. But even in this democratic republic his liberal ideas were frequently received with intolerance, and the peace that he so ardently desired was often elusive."

Mosca said:

Ah, but where do you think the Joseph Priestly Museum is? Do you think this great scholar might be memorialized in... London? Paris? Rome? Vienna?

No; the Joseph Priestly House is in Northumberland, PA, population 3714.

"...Priestley was also a controversial figure whose views were so odious to some of his countrymen that his house, Fair Hill in Birmingham, was burned in a riot, and he and his family left England. Priestley spent the last ten years of his life in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, where he continued his work in science, religion, and education. But even in this democratic republic his liberal ideas were frequently received with intolerance, and the peace that he so ardently desired was often elusive."

Click to expand...

And as the late Paul Harvey was fond of saying at the conclusion of some of his radio broadcasts - "and now you know the rest of the story. Goood Day! "

Thanks Mosca for this added info.

Richard