The Rise and Fall of Nitrous Air Eudiometry: Enlightenment Ideals,Embodied Skills,and the Conflicts of Experimental Philosophy

Humboldt Alexander Bonpland Aimé , Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of the new continent, during the years 1799–1804 … with maps, plans, &c, trans. by Williams H. M. (London, 1821), v, 111.

See Pringle's 1773 Copley Medal Address, reprinted in McKie Douglas , “Joseph Priestley and the Copely Medal”, Ambix, ix (1961), 1–22.

Priestley Joseph , “Observations on different kinds of air”, Philosophical transactions, lxii (1772), 147–264, 211–12.

Priestley Joseph , Experiments and observations on different kinds of air, and other branches of natural philosophy: In three volumes, being the former six volumes abridged and methodized, with many additions (Birmingham, 1790), xv, 354.

Accum Frederick , A system of theoretical and practical chemistry (London, 1803). A second edition was published in Philadelphia in 1808 under the same title.

Ibid., i, 225–33.

Each operating on the basis of a different substance combining with the oxygen in the air, thereby occasioning a measurable contraction in volume.

Aikin Arthur , A dictionary of chemistry and mineralogy with an account of the processes employed … in many of the most important chemical manufactures, to which are added a description of chemical apparatus (London, 1807), i, 412.

Nicholson William , The British encyclopedia or dictionary of arts and sciences … improved state of human knowledge (London, 1809), iii, “eudiometry” (no pagination).

Encyclopaedia Britannica, or a dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature … the third edition, in eighteen volumes, greatly improved [illustrated with five hundred and forty-two copperplates] (Edinburgh, 1797), vii, 20–29; plate between pages 20–21; Encyclopaedia Britannica, or a dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature; enlarged and improved. the fourth edition. [illustrated with nearly six hundred engravings] (Edinburgh, 1810), v, 700.

Schaffer Simon , “Measuring virtue: Eudiometry, enlightenment and pneumatic medicine”, in The medical enlightenment of the eighteenth century, ed. by Cunningham A. French R. (Cambridge, 1990), 281–318, p. 287; Levere Trevor H. , “Measuring gases and measuring goodness”, in Instruments and experimentation in the history of chemistry, ed. by Holmes F. L. Levere T. H. (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 105–35, p. 111.

Golinski Jan , Science as public culture: Chemistry and enlightenment in Britain, 1760–1820 (Cambridge, 1992), 117.

Accum , System (ref. 5), 226.

For Volta and eudiometry see Beretta Marco , “Pneumatics vs. ‘Aerial Medicine’: Salubrity and respirability of air at the end of the eighteenth century”, in Nuova Voltiana: Studies on Volta and his times, ed. by Bevilaqua F. Fregonese L. (Pavia/Milano, 2000), ii, 49–73.

Scheele's eudiometer was based on exposing air to a newly prepared mixture of iron filings and sulfur, which resulted in the partial conversion of the sulfur into acid.

Thomson Thomas , A system of chemsitry [in 4 vols] (Edinburgh, 1802), iii, 262, 264. See also François Achard , “Mémoire sur la mesure de la salubrité de l'air, renfermant la description de deux nouveaux eudiometers”, Observations sur la physique, xxiv (1784), 1784–40.

Thomson , System (ref. 16), iii, 259.

Accum , System (ref. 5), 228. This would suggest that the eudiometer was more akin to that of Berthollet (or the one Accum had associated with Seguin).

For such an attempt see Magiels Geerdt , From sunlight to insight: Jan IngenHousz, the discovery of photosynthesis and science in the light of ecology (Brussels, 2010), 199–231.

See Corbin Alain , The foul and the fragrant: Odor and the French social imagination (Harvard, 1988), part 2, esp. 90–94; Rusnock Andrea A. , Vital accounts: Quantifying health and population in eighteenth-century England and France (Cambridge, 2009); Riley James C. , The eighteenth-century campaign to avoid disease (New York, 1987); and Janković Vladimir , Confronting the climate: British airs and the making of environmental medicine (New York, 2010), 69 and passim. I owe this (latter) reference to an anonymous referee.

Priestley , “Observations” (ref. 3), 211–12.

Boantza Victor , “Collecting airs and ideas: Priestley's style of experimental reasoning”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, xxxviii (2007), 506–22.

Priestley (1772), 211–12; italics added.

Priestley Joseph , Experiments and observations on different kinds of air [2nd edn corrected] (London, 1775), 20.

Priestley Joseph , Experiments and observations on different kinds of air [in 3 vols, 2nd edn] (London, 1775–77), ii, xliii–xliv.

“French mathematician and writer, was born, about 1720, in Arles; spent his life in mathematical and literary pursuits; and died, unpatronised and in obscurity, in 1805. It was upon his suggestion that the naval academy was established at Brest”. Davenport Richard A. , A dictionary of biography; Comprising the most eminent characters of all ages, nations, and professions (Exeter, 1836), 449. Savèrien also authored the Dictionnaire historique, théorique et pratique de marine ancienne & moderne, & oy l'on donne l'explication de toutes les termes de cet art, avec les methodes es plus habiles marins, soit pour la construction des vaisseaux, soit pour leurs differentes manoeuvres & evolutions navales (Paris, 1758); Histoire des progrès de l'esprit humain dans les sciences exactes, et dans les arts qui en dépendent …: Avec un abregé de la vie des auteurs les plus célébres dans ces sciences (Paris, 1766). Another eudiometrician, William Falconer, mentions Savèrien (and refers to the Frenchman's Dictionnaire historique … de marine ancienne & moderne) in the title of his An universal dictionary of the marine: Or, a copious explanation of the technical terms and phrases employed in the construction, equipment, furniture, machinery, movements, and military operations of a ship. Illustrated with variety of original designs …. To which is annexed, a translation of the French sea-terms and phrases, collected from the works of Mess. Du Hamel, Aubin, Savèrien, &c. (London, 1769). Daumas identifies Savèrien as a “naval engineer” and author of Traité des instruments propres à observer en mer (1752). Maurice Daumas, Scientific instruments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and their makers, trans. by Holbrook M. (London, 1972), 288, 338. Magellan and Accum also mention falconer's engagement with eudiometry.

Savèrien Alexandre , Dictionnaire universel de mathematique et de physique, où l'on traite de l'origine, du progrès … & l'analyse des sentimens des plus cèlébres autores sur chaque matiere [in 2 vols] (Paris, 1753), ii, 468–69.

On Servières see Demeulenaere-Douyère Christiane , “L'itinéraire d'un aristocrate au service des ‘arts utiles’: Servières, alias Reth (1755–1804)”, Documents pour l'histoire des techniques [online] xv (2008), retrieved 16 September 2011. http://dht.revues.org/1010.

On Landriani see Belloni Luigi , “L'eudiometro del Landriani (contributo alla storia medica dell'eudiometria)”, Actes du symposium international d'histoire des sciences (Florence-Vinci, 1960), 130–51.

de Servières Baron , “Desciption d'un instrument pour mesurer la salubrité de l'air”, Observations sur la physique, x (1777), 321–3, p. 321. Note the emphasis on nationality, the inventor's virtual anonymity notwithstanding.

Ibid., 323.

See Frängsmyr T. Heilbron J. L. Rider R. E. , (eds), The quantifying spirit in the eighteenth century (Berkeley, 1990). For an interesting study of instruments and their changing roles in Enlightenment culture see Golinski Jan , “Barometers of change: Meteorological instruments as machines of enlightenment”, in The sciences in Enlightened Europe, ed. by Clark W. Golinski J. Schaffer S. (Chicago, 1999), 69–93.

Savèrien , Dictionnaire (ref. 27), ii, 468–9.

Magellan , for instance, claimed that the “Chevalier Landriani, and the Abbé Fontana, both of Italy, and already known to the public by their philosophical labours, were the first, as it seems, who availed themselves of [Priestley's] discovery: And both proposed to the public, a kind of the most useful instruments, that we can boast of, among the numberless ones already employed in philosophical researches and experiments”. de Magellan Jean-Hyacinthe , Description of a glass apparatus for making mineral waters [3rd edn, revised, corrected, and enlarged] (London, 1783), 31.

Fontana Felice , “Recherches physiques sur l'air fixe”, Observations sur la physique, vi (1775), 280–9, pp. 288–9.

Landriani Marsilio , “Description d'un machine pour mesurer la salubrita de l'air, nomée eudiomère”, Observations sur la physique, vi (1775), 315–16, p. 315.

Fontana Felice , Descrizione, e usi di alcuni stromenti per misurare la salubrità dell' aria (Firenze, 1775).

On the authority of Lavoisier's instruments and their iconography see Golinski Jan , “Precision instruments and the demonstrative order of proof in Lavoisier's chemistry”, Osiris, ix (1994), 30–47; Golinski Jan , “‘The nicety of experiment’: Precision of measurement and precision of reasoning in late eighteenth-century chemistry”, in The values of precision, ed. by Wise M. (Princeton, 1995), 72–91.

Fontana , Descrizione (ref. 37), viii–ix; here cited from Levere, “Measuring” (ref. 11), 112.

Landriani Marsilio , Ricerche fisiche intorno all salubrità dell' aria (Milano, 1775), 6.

Ibid., passim.

Schaffer , “Measuring” (ref. 11), 304.

Levere , “Measuring” (ref. 11), 112; Golinski , Science (ref. 12), 119. Ingenhousz referred to it at one point as “Eudiomètre Fontanien”. Ingenhousz Jan , “Observations sur la construction et l'usage de l'eudiomètre de M. Fontana”, Observations sur la physique, xxvi (1785), 339–59, p. 341.

Knoefel Peter K. , “Famine and fever in Tuscany: Eighteenth century Italian concern with the environment”, Physis, xxi (1979), 7–35, p. 26; Knoefel Peter K. , Felice Fontana, life and works (Trento, 1984), 168–73. In a letter to John Pringle (dated November 1775 and published in the Philosophical transactions the following year), Ingenhousz acknowledged the receipt of a copy of the Descrizione and noted having “imitated some of them, and found them very useful for the intended purpose of measuring … the degree of the salubrity of common air”. It is not entirely clear what Ingenhousz meant by ” Them”: Had he “imitated” Fontana's procedures, instruments, or perhaps both? Nor does his subsequent report clarify these questions. “Fontana first produced the nitrous air in a separate vessel”, he explained, ” and then forces it into the glass, or other vessel, in which it is to remain, till a communication be opened between this vessel and the other which contains common air”. Ingenhousz “found it a difficult matter” to control the amount of nitrous air introduced in this manner; since “if this quantity is not always just the same, some variety must happen in every experiment”, he proceeded to contrive an instrument that would “obviate in some measure this difficulty” as well as “abridge the experiment by mixing suddenly the two airs together”. Ingenhousz Jan , “Easy methods of measuring the diminution of bulk, taking place upon the mixture of common air and nitrous air; Together with experiments on platina”, Philosophical transactiosns, lxvi (1776), 1776–67, pp. 257–8. It is clear that Ingenhousz's procedure and instrument could not have possibly resembled any of the ones discussed by Fontana in the Descrizione, all of which worked on the same principle: Filling two holders with the two airs (nitrous and test), opening a valve between them to allow them to mix, adding mercury to restore the volume, and then recording the increase in weight. See Levere , “Measuring” (ref. 11), 112. In addition to ”mixing suddenly the two airs together”, Ingenhousz opted for a volumetric rather than a gravimetric measurement, using first a column of water and then one of mercury.

Ingenhousz Jan , Experiments upon vegetables, discovering their great power of purifying the common air in the sun-shine, and of injuring it in the shade and at night (London, 1779), 150–2.

Ibid., 150.

Ibid., 160.

Ingenhousz , “Easy methods” (ref. 44), 262.

Priestley Joseph , Experiments and observations relating to various branches of natural philosophy [3 vols] (London, 1779–86), i, ix–x.

Priestley , Experiments and observations (ref. 25), i, xi. See also Boantza , “Collecting” (ref. 22), 516–21.

Ingenhousz , Experiments (ref. 45), 160–1; italics added.

Ibid., 162–8.

Ibid., 169, 178–9.

Ibid., 183–4.

Fontana Felice , “Account of the airs extracted from different kinds of waters”, Philosophical transactions, lxvi (1779), 432–53, pp. 444–5.

Ibid., 446.

Ibid., 446.

Ibid., 447; italics added.

Polanyi Michael , Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy (London, 1958), 49, 54. See also Polanyi Michael , The tacit dimension (Gloucester MA, 1983). On skill, tacit knowledge, and its transferability –- in the case of another essentially qualitative chemical instrument –- see Dolan Brian , “Embodied skills and travelling savants: Experimental chemistry in eighteenth-century Sweden and Englnad”, in Travels of learning: A geography of science in Europe, ed. by Simões A. Carneiro A. Diogo M. P. (Dordrecht, 2007), 1–27; for a more general approach see the excellent study by Heinz. Sibum O. , “Reworking the mechanical value of heat: Instruments of precision and gestures of accuracy in early Victorian England”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, xxvi (1995), 1995–106. The literature on tacit knowledge, skill, and expertise in science and scientific practice is vast. A good reference point can be found in Harry Collins, Tacit and explicit knowledge (Chicago, 2010). For the history, philosophy, and sociology of scientific experiments see the seminal Gooding David Pinch T. Schaffer S. (eds), The uses of experiment: Studies in the natural sciences (Cambridge, 1987). For a well-rounded and recent collection dedicated specifically to the philosophy of experiment see Radder Hans (ed.), The philosophy of scientific experimentation (Pittsburgh, 2003). For the social and epistemological dimensions of “science as craftsman's work” see the classic and thought-provoking analysis (which circumvents the various debates surrounding loaded categories like tacit and gestural knowledge) by Jerome. Ravetz R. , Scientific knowledge and its social problems (Oxford, 1971), esp. part 3.

Priestley , Experiments (ref. 25), ii, xxxiv.

Ibid., 449.

Cavallo Tiberius , A treatise on the nature and properties of airs (London, 1781), 328.

Cavendish Henry , “An account of a new eudiometer”, Philosophical transactions, lxxviii (1783), 106–35, p. 106.

See Mason Stephen F. , “Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan, F.R.S., and the chemical revolution of the eighteenth century”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xlv (1991), 155–64.

Cavallo , Treatise (ref. 62), 328.

Ibid., 333–4.

de Magellan Jean-Hyacinthe , “Description of a glass apparatus, for making mineral waters, like those of Pyrmont, Spa, Seltzer, &c. In a few minutes, and with a very little expence: Together with the description of some new eudiometers, or instruments for ascertaining the wholesomeness of respirable air; and the method of using these instruments: In a latter to the Rev. Dr. Priestley (London, 1777).

The third edition of the work was published in 1783; the title was revised to reflect the significant changes and additions. de Magellan Jean-Hyacinthe , Description of a glass apparatus, for making in a few minutes, and with a very small expence, the best mineral waters of Pyrmont, Spa, Seltzer, Seydscgutz, Aix-La-Chapelle, &c. Together with the description of two new eudiometers, or instruments, for ascertaining the wholesomeness of respirable air, and the method of using these instruments, In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Priestley. The third edition, revised, corrected and enlarged by the author, with an examination of the strictures of Mr. T. Cavallo, F.R.S., upon these eudiometers (London, 1783).

Cavallo , Treatise (ref. 62), 325.

Ibid., 326.

Magellan , Description (1777) (ref. 67), 28–29, and footnote (y); italics original.

Magellan , Description (1783) (ref. 68), 57–58.

Ibid., 59.

Cavallo , Treatise (ref. 62), 326–7.

Magellan , Description (1783) (ref. 68), 65; italics original.

Geertz Clifford , Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive anthropology (New York, 1983), 76–77.

On the complexities of this subject in the history of science see Wise N. (ed.), The values of precision (Princeton, 1995), esp. part 1.

Magellan , Description (1783) (ref. 68), 67–68; italics original.

Ibid., 66; italics added.

Ibid., 62.

Cavallo , Treatise (ref. 62), 353–4; italics added.

Golinski makes a similar point regarding the standards of simplicity, especially as expounded by Magellan with respect to Priestleyan principles: “Magellan invoked Priestley's authority and stressed the importance of simplicity: ‘Simplicity in philosophical experiments, and cheapness of the instruments required for their processes, are two of the most desirable circumstances, caeteris paribus, in the investigation of natural phenomena.’” Golinski , Science (ref. 12), 123.

Magellan , Description (1783) (ref. 68), 69–70.

Priestley (1775–77), i, vii.

Ibid., iii, 103.

Mason , “Jean Hyacinthe” (ref. 64), 157; Mason also describes numerous instances in which Magellan acted as a “confidential agent of the French government”, reporting on major scientific innovations introduced outside France, especially in chemistry in England (Ibid., 155 and passim).

Levere Trevor H. Turner Gerard. L'E. , Discussing chemistry and steam: The minutes of a coffee house philosophical 1780–1787 (Oxford, 2002), 19.

De La Fond Sigaud (see ref. 90) identifies him as René-Louis de Girardin, the author of De la composition des paysages (1777), one of Rousseau's close admirers and designer of the first French landscape garden, planned and built in Ermenonville to reflect Rousseau's philosophical and social ideas about the place of man in nature (p. 202). See also Lambin Denis , “Ermenonville today”, The journal of garden history, viii (1988), 42–59.

Gerardin R. L. , “Observations sur les eudiomètres”, Observations sur la physique, xi (1778), 248–54, pp. 248, 253.

De La Fond Joseph-Aignan Sigaud , Essai sur les différents airs, qu'on désigne sous le nom d'air fixe, pour servir de suite & de supplément aux éléments de physique du même auteur (Paris, 1779), 214.

Achard Franz K. , “Mémoire sur la mesure de la salubrité de l'air”, Observations sur la physique, xxiv (1784), 33–40.

Keir James , A treatise on the various kinds of permanently elastic fluids, or gases (London, 1779), xii–xiii.

Cavendish , “An account” (ref. 63), 109. See also Levere “Measuring” (ref. 11), 116–19.

Ibid., 116.

Ibid., 122–3.

Ibid., 134–5.

Senebier Jean , Recherches sur l'influence de la lumière solaire pour métamorphoser l'air fixe en air pur par la vegetation (Geneva, 1783). The chapter's title reads “Experiénces nouvelles, propres à faire voire l'inexactitude & peut-être l'inutilité des Eudiomètres qui exigent l'usage de l'air nitreux” (p. 297).

Ibid., 312–13.

Ingenhousz , “Observations” (ref. 43), 339.

Ibid., 343–4.

Ibid., 344.

Ibid. 345.

Ibid. 340–1; 344.

Levere Trevor H. , Transforming matter: A history of chemistry from alchemy to the Buckyball (Baltimore/London, 2001), 66–79. The full title of chapter 6 –- dedicated to the Chemical Revolution –- is ” Theory and practice: The tools of revolution”. Levere uses here the expression “tools of revolution” to indicate the interdependence between Lavoisier's new laboratory instruments (to which I allude) and his reformative nomenclature.

Levere Trevor H. , “Lavoisier: Language, instruments, and the chemical revolution”, in Nature, experiment, and the sciences, ed. by Levere T. H. Shea W. R. (Dordrecht/Boston, 1990), 207–23; see also Golinski , “Precision” (ref. 38).

For a classical analysis of the role of theory versus instrumental practice in science –- in the case of Newton's experimentation with prisms and his theory of light –- see Shapiro's critique of Schaffer: Shapiro Alan E. , “The gradual acceptance of Newton's theory of light and color”, Perspectives on science, iv (1996), 59–140; Schaffer Simon “Glass works: Newton's prisms and the use of experiment”, in The uses of experiment: Studies in the natural sciences, ed. by Gooding D. Pinch T. Schaffer S. (Cambridge, 1989), 67–104.

Priestley , Experiments (ref. 24), 208; italics original.

Cavendish , “An account” (ref. 63), 135.

Holmes Frederic L. , Lavoisier and the chemistry of life: An exploration of scientific creativity (Madison WI, 1985), 428–49; Donovan Arthur , Antoine Lavoisier: Science administration, and revolution (Oxford, 1993), 277–9.

Seguin Armand , “Mémoire sur l'eudiomèrtrie”, Annales des chimie, ou recueil de memoires concenant la chimie et les arts, ix (1791), 293–303, pp. 294–5.

Humboldt , Personal narrative (ref. 1), 111.