Observations on combustion & acidification : with a new theory of those processes, founded on the conjunction of the phlogistic and antiphlogistic doctrines / by John Redman Coxe, M.D.

  • Coxe, John Redman, 1773-1864.
Date:
1811
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on combustion & acidification : with a new theory of those processes, founded on the conjunction of the phlogistic and antiphlogistic doctrines / by John Redman Coxe, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Without stopping* to consider this very sin- gular circumstance, I shall state, that other ob- jections exist against different parts of the super- structure erected on the aforementioned basis, by which it will appear, that the explanation of com- bustion as depending on the fixation of oxygen, he. does not so happily tally in all its parts. By the antiphlogistic theory it is supposed. that when a combustible body is raised to a certain temperature, it begins to combine with the oxygen of the atmosphere ; * and that dur- ing its combination, this oxygen evolves the caloric and light (in the form of flame,) which it is supposed to be united to in its gaseous state. Here, the former opinion, of the exist- ence of phlogiston, under whatever name desig- nated, is entirely discarded. It will, however, appear probable in the sequel, that the opinion of one general principle of inflammability is by no means so visionary as its opponents wish to establish; and that every combustible body owes its inflammability to such a principle per- vading it. In explaining the existence of flame, or the combination of light and heat, Lavoisier sup- posed them to constitute a part of oxygen in its * Oxygen in its gaseous state consists of the peculiar ponderable base combined with caloric and light