CHAPTER VI 



WOMEN IN CHEMISTRY 



The first woman deserving special mention in the history 

 of chemistry is the wife of the immortal Lavoisier, the most 

 famous of the founders of modern chemical science. While 

 yet in her teens, this remarkable woman gave evidence of 

 exceptional intelligence and will power. She was thor- 

 oughly devoted to her husband, and had the greatest admi- 

 ration for his genius. Her highest ambition was to prove 

 herself worthy of him and to render herself competent to 

 assist him in those investigations that have given him such 

 imperishable renown. With this end in view, she learned 

 Latin and English, and she thus became an accomplished 

 translator from these languages of any chemical works 

 which might aid her spouse in his epoch-making researches. 

 It was she who translated for him the chemical memoirs of 

 Cavendish, Henry, Kirwan, Priestly and other noted Eng- 

 lish scientific investigators. 



Arthur Young, well known in his day as a traveler and 

 author, who in 1787 made the acquaintance of Madame 

 Lavoisier, describes her as a woman full of animation, 

 good sense and knowledge. In referring to a breakfast 

 she had given him, he declares that "unquestionably the 

 best part of the repast was her conversation on Kirwan 's 

 Essay on Phlogiston, which she was then translating, and 

 on other subjects which a woman of sense, working in the 

 laboratory of her husband, knows so well how to make 

 interesting. " 



She was an ardent co-worker with her husband in his 



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