A treatise on chemistry. Vol. III, The chemistry of the hydrocarbons and their derivatives, or, Organic chemistry. Part I / by H.E. Roscoe & C. Schorlemmer.

  • Roscoe, Henry E. (Henry Enfield), 1833-1915.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on chemistry. Vol. III, The chemistry of the hydrocarbons and their derivatives, or, Organic chemistry. Part I / by H.E. Roscoe & C. Schorlemmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    together with oil of vitriol and with oleum tartari (deliquesced carbonate of potash). Alcohol again (spirit of wine) was classed with stannic chloride (fuming spirit of Libavius), with ammonia (spirit of hartshorn), and with nitric acid (spirit of nitre), &c. Common butter was placed in the same group as antimony trichloride (butter of antimony) and other semi-sulid metallic chlorides. Colourless solid bodies which were soluble in water, and possessed a peculiar taste were all classed together as salts, even sugar being placed in this group. 3 In the year 1675 Nicolas Lemery published his Cours de Chymie. In this work the aim of chemistry is defined to be a knowledge of the various substances qui se rencontrent dans un mixte, understanding by this term all growing or increasing natural products. Lemery distinguished these bodies as mineral, vegetable, and animal products. In the first group he placed the metals, minerals, earths, and stones; in the second, plants, resins, the different kinds of gums, fungi, fruits, acids, juices, flowers, mosses, manna, and honey; and under the third head he described the various parts of animal bodies. Although Lemery's system of classification was generally accepted, the founders of the phlogistic theory endeavoured to show that the observed differences depended on a variation in the composition of the bodies classed under each head. Thus Becher in 1669 had argued that the same elements occur in the three natural kingdoms, but that they are combined together in a simpler manner in mineral substances than they are in vegetable and animal bodies. Stahl, on the other hand, asserted in 1702, that in vegetable as well as in animal substances the watery and combustible principles predominate, and that these make their appearance when such an organic substance is heated out of contact with air, water and combustible charcoal being formed. At this time, as well as during the preceding period, the investigation of organic compounds was carried on mainly with a view either to the preparation of medicines, or to the imprave- ment of technical processes, such as that of dyeing. Only towards the close of the phlogistic period did organic chemistry begin to make real progress, and it is from this time forward that the scientific investigation of organic bodies can be said to have commenced. 4 The early ideas of van Helmholt and afterwards of Stahl, that all organic substances can be resolved by the action of