Sir Humphry Davy; his researches in respiratory physiology and his debt to Antoine Lavoisier
✍ Scribed by J. S. Sprigge
- Book ID
- 104456798
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2002
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 600 KB
- Volume
- 57
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0003-2409
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Summary This article shows how the original works of the French scientist Antoine Lavoisier were developed by Humphry Davy, a trainee surgeon from Cornwall, while he was working as a physiologist. Antoine Lavoisier had worked out how oxidation involved the consumption of oxygen and the release of energy. Davy's book, Researches Chemical and Philosophical, Chiefly Concerning Nitrous Oxide, published in 1799, describes the measurement of his own lung volumes, including the first recorded measurement of the residual volume. He measured his own rates of oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production. He is famous for his investigations into nitrous oxide, but he also investigated the effects of breathing nitric oxide and carbon monoxide. He made these observations with a gasometer and analysis of his expired air, and his work anticipates the invention of blood gas analysis.