Some encomiums upon the excellent treatise of chemistry by Berzelius : also objections to his nomenclature, and suggestions respecting a substitute, deemed preferable, in a letter to Professor Silliman / by Robert Hare.

  • Hare, Robert, 1781-1858.
Date:
[1834]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some encomiums upon the excellent treatise of chemistry by Berzelius : also objections to his nomenclature, and suggestions respecting a substitute, deemed preferable, in a letter to Professor Silliman / by Robert Hare. 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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    do not combine with salifiable bases; on the contrary, they de- compose them, and produce haloid salts In this paragraph, the acids in question are represented as pre- eminently endowed with the attributes of acidity, while at the same time they are alleged to be destitute of his principal character of acids,' the property of combining with salifiable bases. In page 41, (same volume) treating of the acid consisting of two volumes of oxygen and one. of nitrogen, considered by chemists generally as a distinct acid, Berzelius uses the following language. If 1 have not coincided in their view, it is because, judging by what we know at present, the acid in question cannot combine with any base, either directly or indirectly, that consequently it does not give salts, and that salifiable bases decompose it always into nitrous acid,* and nitric oxide gas. It is not then a distinct acid, and as such, ought not to be admitted in the nomenclature. Viewing these passages with all that deference which I feel for the productions of the author, I am unable to understand upon what principle the exclusion of nitrous acid from the class of acids, can be rendered consistent with the retention, in that class, of the com- pounds formed by hydrogen with halogene elements. Having thus endeavoured to show that the words acid, salt, and base, have not been so defined as to justify their employment as the basis of the Berzelian nomenclature, I will with great defer- ence proceed to state my objections to the superstructure, erected upon this questionable foundation. Consistently with the French nomenclature, the combinations formed by electronegative princi- ples, with other elements, have been distinguished as acids, or characterized by a termination in ide, or in ure, which last monosyllable, when there has been no intention of altering the meaning, has, by the British chemists, been translated into uret. The termination in ide, which is common to both languages, is, *by Thenard, and other eminent French authors, restricted to the binary compounds of oxygen, which are not acid. Analogous compounds formed with the halogene?' elements, chlorine, bromine, fluorine, iodine, cyanogen, &c, have by the same writer been designated by the termination in ure. Thus we have in his work, chlorures, bromures, fluorures, iodures, cyanures. Some of the most eminent chemists in Great Britain, have distinguished the elements called halogene, by Berzelius, together with oxygen, as supporters of combustion ; and have designated the binary com- pounds made with them, when not acid, by the same termination as the analogous compounds of oxygen. Accordingly in their writings, instead of the names above mentioned, we have chlo- rides, bromides, fluorides, iodides. In Henry's Chemistry, cya- nure is represented by cyanide; in Thomson's, by cyanodide, and in Brande's and Turner's, by cyanuret. The term uret, equivalent as above mentioned to the French ure, is restricted by the English chemists to the compounds form- * Hyponitrous acid of other chemists