Preface v 



Opinions. It is dated Oxford, 12th February 1790, 

 two years before his resignation of the readership in 

 chemistry. Besides Beddoes we have Dr J. B. A. 

 Scherer, physician in Vienna, who in 1793 pubHshed 

 Beweis^ dass J. Mayow vor 100 Jahren den Grimd 

 ziir antiphlogistischen Chemie und Physiologie gelegt 

 hat^ and also G. D. Yeats, M.B. of Hertford College, 

 Oxford, physician at Bedford, who in 1798 published 

 Observations on the Claims of the Moderns to some 

 Discoveries in Chemistry and Physiology. 



Beddoes quotes from Blumenbach's Institutiones 

 Physiologicce^ 1787, the following remarkable 

 passage : " Magna jam pars memorabilium horum 

 phsenomenorum," says he, speaking of respiration, 

 ^'quibus nuperis lustris et physica de aeribus factitiis 

 disciplina et physiologia negotii respirationis tarn 

 egregie ditata et illustrata est, jam ante centum et 

 quod excurrit annos innotuit acutissimi ingenii 

 medico Joanni Mayow, cujus de sal-nitro et spiritu 

 nitro-aereo (quo nempe nomine dephlogisticatum 

 aerem insignivit) tractatum, Oxon. 8vo editum, 

 magna cum voluptate legi et relegi." 



But these attempts to make Mayow and his work 

 known to the scientific and medical world were not 

 crowned with much success. 



Mayow is indeed mentioned, and his work is 

 discussed, in most books on the History of Chemistry ; 

 but as far as we have been able to discover, not many 

 chemists or physiologists have made anything like an 

 intimate personal acquaintance with his writings. 

 Quite recently a considerable part of the treatise on 

 nitre has been translated into German and published 

 by Prof. Donnan (Ostwald's Klassiker der exakten 

 Wisse^ischaften, Nr. 125, 1901). We had begun the 

 translation some time previously, but soon saw that it 



