July 20, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
47 
of any substance different from the substance of its 
■entirety, so as to leave a residuary substance different 
irom the substance of its entirety. Thus chemists are 
'incapable of taking away from iron, for example, a 
.something that is not iron; or of taking away from it 
.anything whatever, so as to leave a residue that is not 
iron; whereas they are capable of taking away from 
iron-pyrites a something which is not iron-pyrites hut is 
.sulphur, so as to leave a residue which is not iron-pyrites 
hut is metallic iron. 
The notion of all other material bodies being consti¬ 
tuted of, and decomposable into a limited number of 
elementary bodies, which could not themselves be proved 
to suffer decomposition or mutual transformation under 
any circumstances whatever, but could, on the contrary, 
be traced respectively through entire series of combina¬ 
tions, and be extracted at will from each member of the 
series, is a notion which, undergoing in course of time a 
gradual development, was first put forward in a definite 
form by Lavoisier; until whose time, some residue of the 
great alchemical doctrine of the essential transmutability 
of all things—that the substance of all things was the 
.same, while the form above was different—still prevailed. 
To Lavoisier is due the enunciation of the principle,— 
■departed from, however, in a few instances by himself, 
—that all bodies which cannot be proved to be com¬ 
pounded, are in practical effect, if not in absolute fact, 
olementary, and are to be dealt with accordingly. 
Of the many definite substances known to chemists 
before the discovery of hydrogen gas, the following were 
.afterwards recognized by Lavoisier and his colleagues as 
■elementary. First, the seven metals known to the 
.ancients, namely, gold, silver, mercury, copper, iron, tin, 
.and lead, distinguished respectively by the signs of the 
-sun, moon, and planets; and each conceived to have 
some mystic connection with the particular orb or planet 
•of which it bore the sign, and not unfrequently the name. 
Then three metals which became known at the latter 
•end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, namely, antimony, discovered by Basil Valentine 
in 1490 ; bismuth, mentioned by Agricola, 1530; and 
.zinc, mentioned by Paracelsus, ob. 1541. An elemen¬ 
tary character was also assigned to the non-metals car¬ 
bon and sulphur, which had been known from the 
•earliest times; to phosphorus, discovered by Brandt, of 
.Hamburg, in 1669 ; and to boracic acid, now known to 
be a hydrated oxide of boron, first discovered by Hom- 
berg in 1702, and still occasionally spoken of as Homberg’s 
sedative salt. The list was further swelled by four 
metals which, in Lavoisier’s time, had been but recently 
discovered, namely, cobalt and arsenic, identified simul¬ 
taneously in 1733 by George Brandt, of Stockholm; 
platinum, discovered in 1741 by Woods, assay-master at 
Jamaica; and nickel, discovered in 1751 by Cronstedt. 
The only other bodies known before 1766, and after¬ 
wards included in the class of elements, namely, the 
.alkalies and earths, had during the quarter of a century 
immediately preceding been made the subjects of especial 
study . The differentiation of potash from soda, both 
previously known by the common name of alkali, was 
indicated by Duhamel in 1736, and more completely esta¬ 
blished by Marggraf in 1758. The differentiation from one 
another of lime or calcareous earth, silex or verifiable 
■earth, alumina or argillaceous earth, and magnesia or 
bitter earth, was accomplished by the labour of many 
chemists, more particularly Marggraf, Bergmann, and 
Scheele; prior to whose researches silex, alumina and 
magnesia, together with their different combinations and 
-commixtures with each other and with lime, were held 
to be but impure varieties of lime. The nature of the 
difference between the caustic alkalies and earths and 
their respective carbonates, was made known by Black 
in 1756 ; while the real constitution of the alkalies and 
•earths, as metallic oxides, though suspected by Lavoisier, 
was not established until the beginning of the present 
•century, by Davy and his contemporaries and followers. 
Table I. —Elements, etc., in Order or Discovery. 
• • 
• ♦ 
• • 
1490 
1530 
1541 
1669 
1702 
1733 
55 
1741 
1751 ! 
1736 : 
to j< 
1758 
1766 
1771 
1772 
1774 
55 
1774 
1778 
1781 
1782 
1789 
55 
1791 
1793 
1794 
1797 
1798 
1802 
1803 
5) 
1811 
1817 
1818 
1826 
1828 
1830 
1839 
1841 
1843 
1844 
1846 
1859 
1861 
1863 
Gold . . . 
Silver. . . 
Mercury . . 
Copper . . 
Iron . . . 
Tin .... 
Lead . . . 
Antimony 
Bismuth . . 
Zinc . . . 
Carbon . . 
Sulphur . . 
Phosphorus . 
Borax -on . 
Arsenic . . 
Cobalt . . 
Platinum. . 
Nickel . . 
SoDA-IUM . . 
Potash . . 
Lime . . . 
Silex . . . 
Alumina . . 
^Magnesia 
Hydrogen . 
Fluor -ine . 
Nitrogen. . 
Chlorine . . 
Oxygen . . 
Manganese . 
Baryta -ium. 
Molybdenum 
Tungsten. . 
Tellurium . 
Uranium . . 
Zirconia -IUM 
Titanium . . 
Strontia -ium 
Yttria -ium . 
Chromium . 
Glucina -um. 
Tantalum 
Cerium . . 
Palladium . 
Rhodium . . 
Iridium . . 
Osmium . . 
Iodine . . 
Lithium . . 
Selenium . . 
Cadmium . . 
Bromine . . 
Thorinum . 
Vanadium 
Lanthanum . 
Didymium 
Erbium . . 
Ruthenium . 
Niobium . . 
Cjesium . . 
Rubidium. . 
Thallium 
Indium. . . 
O 
D 
$ 
? 
<? 
'll 
h. 
B. Valentine. 
Agricola ? 
Paracelsus ? 
Brandt. 
Homberg. 
| G. Brandt. 
Woods. 
Cronstedt. 
\ Duhamel. 
| Marggraf. 
Bergmann, 
and 
Scheele. 
Cavendish. 
Scheele. 
Rutherford. 
Scheele. 
Priestley. 
; \ Gahn. 
> Scheele. 
) Delhuart. 
Muller. 
| Klaproth. 
Gregor. 
Hope. 
Gadolin. 
| Vauquelin. 
Hatchett. 
Klaproth. 
| Wollaston. 
) Descotils and Smith- 
J son Tenant. 
Courtois. 
Arfwedson. 
Berzelius. 
Stromeyer. 
Balard. 
Berzelius. 
Sefstrom. 
i ) 
I > Mosander. 
i ) 
Claus. 
H. Rose. 
I | Bunsen. 
Crookes. 
Reich and Richter. 
The successive recognition of the elementary gases, 
quickly following Black’s remarkable discovery of carbonic 
acid gas, began with the identification of hydrogen by 
Cavendish in 1766. This was succeeded by the discovery 
of nitrogen by Rutherford in 1772 ; of chlorine and 
fluoric acid, the latter now held to be a fluoride of hydro¬ 
gen, by Scheele in 1774 ; and of oxygen by Priestly m 
the same year. 
