Elements of chemistry : including the most recent discoveries and applications of the science to medicine and pharmacy, and to the arts / by Robert Kane.

  • Kane, Robert, 1809-1890.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of chemistry : including the most recent discoveries and applications of the science to medicine and pharmacy, and to the arts / by Robert Kane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    r ] TOP \ Pi ELEMENTS OF CHEMISTRY. The science of chemistry has its origin in the principle, that the bodies which constitute the external world are composed of a va- riety of elements, united according to certain laws. If we could conceive a universe consisting only of iron, or quicksilver, or sul- phur, the objects of the astronomer might still remain as extensive and as sublime as they are in the actual state of things ; for, in tracing the constitution of planetary and satellitic systems, or re- ducing to precise laws the forces by which the motions of the heavenly bodies might be produced, all the resources of his science would still be brought into play. In like manner, the physical sci- ences could attain perfection, for the relations of these bodies to heat, to light, to electricity, the various problems and laws of stat- ical and dynamical forces, could have been known, and thus all that is essential to the science of natural philosophy might be attained. But not even an idea of chemistry could have been formed. The duty of chemistry is to find the constituent ele- mentary substances, which, by uniting, form the various compound bodies which we observe ; to ascertain the nature of the forces by which they unite, and the laws by which their union or separation may be regulated ; to trace the effects of their mutual action in the properties of the new substances formed by their combination, and in the phenomena, independent of composition, which accom- pany the exertion of chemical force. This object of chemistry has been at all periods fully recognised ; for the earliest philosophers, even before the science had received a name, considered its objects as well defined in the arrangement of the elements of fire, air, earth, and water. When the methods of chemistry, and the reasonings to which they led, acquired a better form, these elements, which had been assumed from specu- lations in natural history and metaphysics, gave way to others, as sulphur, spirit, salt, oil, and earth, equally incorrect, but still those which, in the rough trials of the period, were obtained by decom- posing compound bodies. As more accurate ideas and better pro- cesses were acquired, these elementary principles changed again their character, until, finally, the philosophical idea of chemistry was clearly stated and established by Lavoisier: 1st, that we study to resolve the various compound bodies found in nature into others which resist our power, and which we term undecompounded or sini' pie substances, without pretending that they are elements; for the advance of science enables us to decompose, in each generation, bodies which to our own predecessors had appeared simple ', 2d, that we study to effect the recombination of those simple Jbodies,