Discovery of Oxygen: Birth of Modern Chemistry

Abstract

IN 1772, the British chemist and dissenting preacher Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), stood in front of the Royal Society and reported on his latest discovery: “This air is of exalted nature…A candle burned in this air with an amazing strength of flame; and a bit of red hot wood crackled and burned with a prodigious rapidity. But to complete the proof of the superior quality of this air, I introduced a mouse into it; and in a quantity in which, had it been common air, it would have died in about a quarter of an hour, it lived a whole hour, and was taken out quite vigorous.” Back then Priestley was not aware what a revolution he was to cause.