Friday, February 12, 2016

1757: Joseph Black discovers carbon dioxide

Joseph Black (1728-1799)
In 1668 John Mayow came very close to discovering oxygen and carbon dioxide. Perhaps the only thing stopping him from these discoveries was an early death. This left the door open for other investigators, such as Joseph Black.

In the 13th century, and again in the 17th century, Roger Bacon and Jean van Helmont described a substance they referred to as gas sylvestre.

In 1668, John Mayow noted his belief that there was a vapor arising from the blood that was exhaled during the act of respiration. Yet he passed away before he was able to make anything further of this discovery.

Other investigators performed experiments with this substance throughout the 18th century, and by the 1750s, by the time Joseph Black began his experiments with the gas, it was generally referred to as "fixed air."

So, while performing his own experiments in 1757,  Black essentially proved proved Bacon, van Helmont and Mayow correct, that a substance, be it called "gas sylvestre" or "fixed air" does exist.

By his experiments, he proved that by heating limestone the substance was released into the atmosphere.  He also proved that this substance was exhaled during the process of respiration.

Also of significance is that Black discovered that this compound was formed animals and exhaled by the lungs, thus proving Mayow correct. A picture was now forming that the purpose of the lungs was not to cool the body, but to inhale a substance vital to life, and exhale a waste product (carbon dioxide).  This wisdom would be expounded upon by great minds of the next century.

So, beginning in the 13th century, various men of genius began to question the ideas of the ancients, those that were held by the Church.  Many of them risked everything to perform, and later to announce, their discoveries to the world.  Such bravery allowed for science to slowly replace mythology in medicine.

References:
  1. Tissier
  2. Lagerkvist, Ulf, "The Enigma of Ferment," 2005, Singapore, World Scientific Publishing
  3. Potter, Elizabeth, "Gender and Boyle's Law of Gases," 2001, Indiana University Press
  4. Newman, William R, et al, "Alchemy Tried in the Fire," 2002, University of Chicago
  5. Lehrs, Ernst, "Man or Matter," 1958, Great Britain, Whistable Litho Ltd.
  6. Jindel, S.K., "Oxygen Therapy," 2008, pages 5-8
  7. Hill, Leonard, Benjamin Moore, Arthur Phillip Beddard, John James Rickard, etc., editors, "Recent Advances in Physiology and bio-chemistry," 1908, London, Edward Arnold
  8. Hamilton, William, "A History of Medicine, Surgery and Anatomy," 1831, Vol. I, London, New Burlington
  9. Osler, William Henry, "The evolution of Modern Medicine: A series of lectures delivered at Yale University on the Sillman Foundation in April, 1913," 1921, New Haven, Yale University Press
  10. Osler, ibid, pages 170, reference referring to William Harvey: Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus, Francofurti, 1628, G. Moreton's facsimile reprint and translation, Canterbury, 1894, p. 48. 20 Ibid., p. 49.
  11. Garrison, Fielding Hudson, "Introduction to the history of medicine," 1921, London, 
  12. Baker, Christopher, editor, "The Great Cultural Eras of the Western World: Absolutism and the Scientific Revolution 1600-1720: A biographical dictionary," 2002, CT, Greenwood Publishing; Herman Boerhavve published Biblia Naturae (Bible of Nature) in 1737, which was a two volume compilation of the works of Jan Swammerdam. Can you read Latin?
  13. Garrison, op cit, 266; (Samuel) Pepy's Diary, Mynors Bright's ed., London, 1900, v, 191
  14. Bradford, Thomas Lindsley, writer, Robert Ray Roth, editor, “Quiz questions on the history of medicine from the lectures of Thomas Lindley Bradford M.D.,” 1898, Philadelphia, Hohn Joseph McVey
  15. Brock, Arthur John, "Galen on the natural faculties," 1916, London, New York, William Heinemann, G.P. Putnam's Sons
  16. "History of Chemistry," historyworld.net, http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=kpt, accessed 7/6/14
  17. Affray, Charles, Denis Noble, "Origins of Systems Biology in William Harvey's masterpiece on the Movement of the Heart and the Blood in Animals," April 17, 2009, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 10(2), pages 1658-1669, found online at ncbi.nlm.hih.gov, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2680639/, accessed 7/8/14
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