44 
M O R V E A U. 
lie began by repeating many of Beaume’s experiments ; 
and, by trying his inexperienced hand in performing 
original ones, he foon found himfelf tlrong enough to 
attack the doflor. The latter had juft been reading a 
memoir on the analyfis of different kinds of oils, when 
Guyton proceeded to combat and controvert fome opi¬ 
nions iii fo forcible and mafterly a manner as aftonithed 
every one prefent. The meeting having been adjourned, 
Dr. Chardenon addreffed Morveau : u Sir,” faid he, “ you 
are born to be an honour to chemiftry. So much know¬ 
ledge could only have been fo quickly gained by genius 
joined with perfeverance. Follow your new purfuit, and 
confer with me in your difficulties.” Such is the lan¬ 
guage of a liberal man, who, ambitious without jealotify, 
and loving fcience for its own fake, fees in the laudable 
efforts of another nothing but an additional means of 
forwarding the progrefs of his favourite ftudy. 
Morveau, having now become decidedly a chemift , went 
to Paris, for the purpofe of vifiting the fcientific eftablifh- 
ments of that metropolis, and purchafing books, prepa¬ 
rations, and inftruments, which he ftill wanted, to enable 
him to purfue his favourite ftudy. The perfon to whom 
he addreffed himfelf for this purpofe was Beaume, who 
was then among the firft of the French c’nemifts. Pleafed 
with Guyton’s ardour, Beaume proceeded to inquire 
what courfes of chemiftry he had attended. “ None,” 
was the anfwer. u How then could you have learned to 
make experiments, and above all to acquire the dexterity 
which certain manipulations require, and which you feem 
perfectly to underftand ?” il PraClice,” replied the young 
chemift, “ has been my mailer; melted crucibles and 
broken retorts my tutors.” “ In that cafe,” faid Beaume, 
“ you have not learned, you have invented.” 
Guyton de Morveau’s firft effay on his return to Dijon, 
was prefented in a note which he read to the Academy 
that fame year, but which, not having been printed, has 
probably been loft. His next memoir was of more im¬ 
portance. The phenomenon of the increafe of weight in 
metals after a long expofure to the aCtion of fire, had 
been, in faCt, explained by Jean Rey in 1630; but loll 
fight of aim oft immediately afterwards. His explanation 
was forgotten, and the calcination of metals became once 
more the fubjeCt of controverfies and conjectures amongft 
the fucceffive philofophers who cultivated the fcience of 
chemiftry. Dr. Chardenon, who had often obferved this 
augmentation of weight, attempted to explain it in a 
memoir, which he read at the Academy of Dijon. He 
began by fhowing the improbability of the hypothefis ad¬ 
vanced by others ; and particularly combated that of M. ■ 
Berault, who, in a memoir which obtained the prize of 
the Academy of Bourdeaux twenty years before, had 
imagined that the air furrounding the ignited metals, 
depofited amongft their molecules a quantity of foreign 
matter, and thus encreafed their abfolute gravity. The 
new explanation, however, which Dr. Chardenon offered, 
was not much happier; and it certainly mull ftrike us with 
aftonifhment, that men otherwife inftruCted, and verfed 
in the phyfical fciences, fhould have fo far perverted their 
own knowledge, as to explain a phenomenon, confifling 
in the augmentation of abfolute weight in a given mafs, 
by imagining the J'ubtradion of a certain principle (phlo- 
gifton) from that mafs; and vice verfa the reduction of 
its primitive weight, by the addition of the fame principle. 
Anxious to prove his interefl in the new ftudy he had 
embraced, Guyton loft no time in purfuing this inquiry, 
and, a few months afterwards, read a paper upon the 
fubjeCt. That fpirit of practical refearch, which has dif- 
tinguifhed the writer on every fubfequent occafion, feems 
to have dictated this production; but in tbofe days no 
appeal to fads could produce conviction. 
In the April of the following year, while making fome 
experiments on the folution of alkalies in certain acids, 
Guyton was very near collecting the carbonic acid, by 
fatnrating a given quantity of mineral alkali (carbonat 
foda) with nitrous acid. But his aim in making thefe 
experiments, was to fhow that, during the eftervefeenee- 
which took place at the moment of mixing the two in¬ 
gredients, there was a confiderable diminution of the 
temperature. 
But it mu ft not be fuppofed, becaufe Morveau had ar¬ 
dently embraced purfuits foreign to his profeftional vo¬ 
cations, that he neglected the field of literature, in which 
he had culled fo many flowers; or that he abandoned the 
bar, which refounded ftill with his praife. By an affiduity 
that has few examples, a zeal that knew no bounds, Guy¬ 
ton was alternately a chemift, a magiftrate, qnd a diflin- 
guiflied writer of polite literature. At the opening of 
the feffions of the parliament of Burgundy, in November 
1769, he pronounced a difeourfe, Sur les Mceurs, which 
was as remarkable for the beauty of its ftyle, as for the 
foundnefs of its doCtrine. This oration ferved to confirm 
his talents as a chafle and elegant writer—a character, 
which he maintained even in the courfe of the molt 
unimportant, as well as the moll abftrufe, memoirs on 
fubjeCts of fcience. 
Various other occupations diflinguifhed the next four 
or five years of Morveau’s life, in his double capacity of 
a chemift and a lawyer; but, in a fketch like the prefent, 
in which his moll important labours only can be recorded, 
it would be needlefs to dwell upon all his productions. 
We muft not, however, omit to mention the collection 
of Scientific Eflays which he publifhed about this time, 
(177s.) and in which he treated fome of the mod im¬ 
portant fubjeCls conneCled with fcience: and this in de~ 
fpite of fome of his prejudiced legal colleagues, who pub¬ 
licly upbraided him for giving up too much of his time, 
to fcientific refearches. 
This and the following year of Guyton’s life, were, 
particularly rich in ufefui and ingenious refearches. His 
experiments on adhefion are too well known to need par¬ 
ticular mention in this place. The refults he had ob¬ 
tained from them were afterwards confirmed by other 
philofophers, who, like him, found, that a difk of glafs, 
ten lines in diameter, adhered to the furface of mercury 
with a force equal to a weight of 66 - 5 grains. About 
this time, alfo, the theory of gafes was beginning to 
threaten the phlogiflic doCtrine. The refearches of fe- 
veral eminent philofophers of Europe, and more parti¬ 
cularly of England, had brought the two parties to a 
dole combat, from whence there was no retreating, un- 
lefs either conquered or triumphant. Guyton took part 
in the contefl; and, perceiving the weak fide of the doc¬ 
trine he had hitherto fupported, without however being 
yet wholly convinced of the foundnefs of that of its op¬ 
ponents, in a publication, which does him infinite credit, 
and in which his theories and conjectures are fupported 
by new faCts and experiments, fhowed a difpofition to 
adopt the pneumatic doCtrine, provided feveral doubts 
were explained to him, which yet perplexed and forbade 
him to embrace its otherwife luminous principles. 
Morveau was now deftined to lay the foundation of a 
moll important, difeovery. We allude to his mode of 
difinfefting air impregnated with peflilential or epidemic 
miafmata. It was in 1773 that Guyton fhowed the effi¬ 
cacy of muriatic acid gas in deftroying infection. Till 
then, no fcientific principle had led thofe who in vain 
fought to combat the influence of that infection in hofpi- 
tals, lazarettoes, prifons, or otherwife, where it produced 
the moil fatal confequences, to the difeovery of any effec¬ 
tive method. Means, as various as they were numerous, 
had till then been employed with little fuccefs. The 
aromatic fires, the combuflion of fulphur, the acetic va¬ 
pours, and others, had never been productive of any bene¬ 
ficial effeCt; and the infection which had fpread itfelf, at 
the epoch we are now recording, in one of the churches 
at Dijon, would have ultimately proved fatal to that 
city, as it had hitherto proved unconquerable, had not 
Morveau, led by analogies which his chemical refearches 
had fuggefted, propofed and employed the gas refulting 
from the decompofition of muriat of foda by fulphuric 
acid. 
