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French chemist known as the father of modern chemistry; discovered oxygen and disproved the theory of phlogiston (1743-1794)

French chemist known as the father of modern chemistry; discovered oxygen and disproved the theory of phlogiston (1743-1794)

A celebrated French chemist, one of the founders of modern chemistry; born at Paris, Aug. 16, 1743; died there, May 8, 1794. Starting from the discoveries which the phlogistonists had added to the work of the much-libeled alchemists, he demonstrated experimentally the acidifying action of "dephlogisticated air", or as he renamed it, "oxygen gas". He was the first to analyze water, and to obtain by synthesis "fixed air", or as he called it, "carbonic acid". He first gave system to chemistry; and not least of his services to science was his part in devising- with Guyton de Morveau- a consistent scheme of chemical nomenclature. Besides papers contributed to the proceedings of learned societies, he wrote an "Elementary Treatise on Chemistry" (1789). He was a farmer-general of taxes, and was guillotined for it in the Terror.