Introduction

The eighteenth century was a period of particular importance for chemistry since it witnessed a transformation usually described as “the chemical revolution”. At the end of the seventeenth century writers of chemistry books continued to think it necessary to apologize for their study, since it was still confused with alchemy, and to explain that: “Chymistry is a true and real Art, and (when handled by prudent Artists) produceth true and real effects”. Yet by the beginning of the nineteenth century chemistry was seen by many people as the outstanding example of a successful science, and one which was recruiting the best brains. As the astronomer Delambre remarked in 1808: “the revolution recently brought about in chemistry could not happen without turning many experimentalists a little out of their ordinary course, when they saw in a neighbouring science a road opened that promised more numerous discoveries”. As the ‘chemical revolution’ occurred in the second half of the eighteenth century, it is appropriate for this chapter to focus on the period after 1750, while giving some consideration to the wider period with the influence of Issaac Newton (d. 1727) and culminating in the reception and development of the work of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794).