Joseph Black's "Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry"

Abstract

JOSEPH BLACK (1728-1799), lecturer in chemistry in the Uni versity of Glasgow from 1756 and professor of chemistry in the University 'of Edinburgh from 1766 until his death, is best remem bered for his researches on lime, magnesia, and the alkalis (1756), in which he long preceded Lavoisier in the use of quantitative methods in chemistry. By his discovery of fixed air (carbon dioxide), he laid the foundation for the remarkable series of researches on gases by Priestley and Cavendish that culminated in the so-called Revolution in Chemistry initiated by Lavoisier. Black, apart from his Inaugural Dissertation (1754), which was expanded into the paper just mentioned, published very little. He was occupied by medical practice and had delicate health. Winter by winter, however, he delivered courses of lectures on chemistry, mainly attended by medical students, many of whom came up with no previous knowledge of the subject. These lectures were prepared with great care and illus trated by experiments on which Black spent much trouble. The lectures were published four years after Black's death by John Robison, professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, in two quarto volumes of some 1,300 pages. In giving some account of them in a short paper it will, therefore, be possible to select only a few items which are thought to be of interest. Three editions of the book are described, of which only the first is available to me: