The collaboration of Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier and the first measurements of human oxygen consumption

2013 ◽  
Vol 305 (11) ◽  
pp. L775-L785 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. West
Keyword(s):  
Oxygen Consumption ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Scientific Collaboration ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Respiratory Physiology ◽  
Phlogiston Theory ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Editorial Work ◽  
Written Descriptions

Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794) was one of the most eminent scientists of the late 18th century. He is often referred to as the father of chemistry, in part because of his book Elementary Treatise on Chemistry. In addition he was a major figure in respiratory physiology, being the first person to recognize the true nature of oxygen, elucidating the similarities between respiration and combustion, and making the first measurements of human oxygen consumption under various conditions. Less well known are the contributions made by his wife, Marie-Anne Lavoisier. However, she was responsible for drawings of the experiments on oxygen consumption when the French revolution was imminent. These are of great interest because written descriptions are not available. Possible interpretations of the experiments are given here. In addition, her translations from English to French of papers by Priestley and others were critical in Lavoisier's demolition of the erroneous phlogiston theory. She also provided the engravings for her husband's textbook, thus documenting the extensive new equipment that he developed. In addition she undertook editorial work, for example in preparing his posthumous memoirs. The scientific collaboration of this husband-wife team is perhaps unique among the giants of respiratory physiology.

scholarly journals Church and State during the French Revolution in the Works of J.M. Zakher

2020 ◽  
Vol 162 (6) ◽  
pp. 121-133
Author(s):  
A.A. Kutuzova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
French Society ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Comprehensive Picture ◽  
Revolutionary Period ◽  
The Church ◽  
The French Revolution

The relations between the church and the state during the revolutionary events in France in the late 18th century were discussed based on the works of Jakov Mikhailovich Zakher (1893–1963), an outstanding Soviet historian. J.M. Zakher’s works cast light on a number of questions: the general position of the church; the frame of people’s mind in the pre-revolutionary period; the emergence and development of the antireligious struggle; the roles played by J. Foucher and A. Schomet, two most prominent public figures of the deсhristianization movement who triggered the most dramatic changes in the spiritual framework of the French society; etc. It was concluded that, despite a whole complex of studies have been performed on the French Revolution, the works of J.M. Zakher provide an important systematic coverage of the state-church relations in France during the 18th century. His legacy clearly preserves the “École russe” traditions, such as thoroughness, scrupulousness and attention to details, as well as the desire to create a vivid and comprehensive picture of the past.

scholarly journals Apocalyptics of revolution and self-sacrifice in the poem “Lieutenant Schmidt” by B. L. Pasternak

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 202-210
Author(s):  
Oksana A. Maltseva
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Characteristic Features

The paper investigates the structure and significance of a mythopoetic component in the poem “Lieutenant Schmidt” (1926–1927) by B. Pasternak, revealing that mythopoetics contributes to the expression of the author’s Christian views on the events of the Russian revolution of 1905–1907. It depicts the Sevastopol Uprising as a kind of repetition of the tragic history of capture of Kyiv by Mongols-Tatars in the 13th century, as well as the represents bloody realities of the Great French Revolution of the late 18th century, since these events resulted from the fact that society neglected the spiritual and moral foundations of its existence. According to the author the images, arising in the subtext, the images of the Church of the Tithes destroyed in 1240, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) and the October Manifesto (1905), not implemented in time, are the embodiments of such foundations. At the same time, the study emphasizes the significance of a philistine appearance of the “sleeping” fortress-city of Sevastopol. The author draws attention to the fact that the leitmotif of representing the spiritual sleep, lying and violence is the image of the rampant demonic force which eventually engulfed both warring parties. As she argues, there is, however, an antagonistic spiritual origin of this element in the poem — it is exactly in the image of Lieutenant Schmidt who embodies the idea of evangelical self-sacrifice in the era of violence and lack of spirituality. The paper analyzes the nature of internal conflict experienced by the hero, as well as the dynamics of the plot lines connected with him and highlights the role of biblical, historical and literary allusions. The author concludes that the work under study reveals characteristic features of a historical and mythological poem.

Joseph Priestley, oxygen, and the Enlightenment

2014 ◽  
Vol 306 (2) ◽  
pp. L111-L119 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. West
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
Respiratory Physiology ◽  
Experimental Investigations ◽  
Benjamin Franklin ◽  
True Nature ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) was the first person to report the discovery of oxygen and describe some of its extraordinary properties. As such he merits a special place in the history of respiratory physiology. In addition his descriptions in elegant 18th-century English were particularly arresting, and rereading them never fails to give a special pleasure. The gas was actually first prepared by Scheele (1742–1786) but his report was delayed. Lavoisier (1743–1794) repeated Priestley's initial experiment and went on to describe the true nature of oxygen that had eluded Priestley, who never abandoned the erroneous phlogiston theory. In addition to oxygen, Priestley isolated and characterized seven other gases. However, most of his writings were in theology because he was a conscientious clergyman all his life. Priestley was a product of the Enlightenment and argued that all beliefs should be able to stand the scientific scrutiny of experimental investigations. As a result his extreme liberal views were severely criticized by the established Church of England. In addition he was a supporter of both the French and American Revolutions. Ultimately his political and religious attitudes provoked a riot during which his home and his scientific equipment were destroyed. He therefore emigrated to America in 1794 where his friends included Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. He settled in Northumberland, Pennsylvania although his scientific work never recovered from his forced departure. But the descriptions of his experiments with oxygen will always remain a high point in the history of respiratory physiology.

scholarly journals “Claire d’Albe” (1799) de Mme Cottin y la traducción al español de 1822

2018 ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Beatriz Martínez Ojeda
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Historical Novel ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
First Empire ◽  
Novela Historica ◽  
Love Triangle

Sophie Cottin fue una novelista francesa que destacó con luz propia entre la pléyade de narradoras de finales del xviii. Considerada por la crítica literaria, junto a Mme de Genlis, como la creadora en Francia de la novela histórica, sus relatos serán una especie de oasis en el desierto literario que se extiende desde los inicios de la Revolución hasta finales del Primer Imperio. Claire d’Albe es un relato imbuido del sentimentalismo fúnebre que preludia el Romanticismo. Los personajes femeninos que en ésta se describen hacen gala de innumerables virtudes morales que en la mente del lector evocarán a los de la Nouvelle Héloise de Rousseau. En esta obra de Cottin se narra la historia de una joven atrapada en un triángulo amoroso, quien se debate entre someterse a la virtud o sucumbir a una pasión desenfrenada, argumento que deja entrever el carácter preeminentemente aleccionador de la novela. El objetivo principal de este trabajo es llevar a cabo un análisis de la novela francesa Claire d’Albe, tras el que se abordará el estudio de la versión española de la obra, publicada de forma anónima en el año 1822 con el título de Clara de Alba. Novelita en cartas.Sophie Cottin was a French novelist who set above her female writer peers in the late 18th century. Literary criticism has named her, along with Mme de Genlis, as the engenderer of the historical novel in France. Cottin’s body of literary works can be regarded as a visage amid the literary desert that ranges from the very beginning of the French Revolution to the fall of the First Empire. Claire d’Albe is a novel imbibed with a melancholy and sentimental touch that foreshadows Romanticism. In like fashion, its female characters are tinged with myriad moral virtues the reader can easily acknowledge in Rousseau’s Nouvelle Héloise. In particular, Cottin’s novel tells the story of a young lady caught in a love triangle. She is constantly at war with herself when it comes down to virtue or to surrendering to unbridled passions, an inner conflict which in essence reflects the didactic tone breathed throughout the novel. The primary objective of this study is to carry out an overall analysis of Claire d’Albe and to study in depth the novel’s translated version into Spanish, entitled Clara de Alba. Novelita en cartas and published anonymously in 1822.

Between Law and Revolution

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-100
Author(s):  
Joel Colón-Ríos
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Power Part ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The French Revolution

Although the origins of the theory of constituent power are generally placed in the French Revolution, the different legal and institutional implications associated with it in late 18th-century France are seldom explored. This chapter engages in such an exploration by focusing on two institutions that were rejected by Sieyès: the imperative mandate and (decision-making) primary assemblies. Part I focuses on Sieyès’ proposals about constitution-making and constitutional reform after 1789. Part II of the chapter examines the role of citizen instructions in late 18th-century France. Sieyès saw citizen instructions as radically inconsistent with the very idea of representation; they were abolished very early in the Revolution. In so doing, it will be shown, French revolutionaries altered in fundamental ways not only the relationship between electors and representatives, but the very nature of what counts as an exercise of constituent power. Part III focuses on the role of primary assemblies during the more radical stages of the French Revolution (namely, 1792–1793). The approach to primary assemblies found in both in the Constitution of 1793, as well as in the Girondin Draft Constitution, reflected in important ways Rousseau’s conception of those entities as a key mechanism of democratic constitutional change. This approach to constitutional change will be contrasted with that of Sieyès, who saw primary assemblies as the site for the exercise of the much more modest ‘commissioning power’, the power to elect those seen as capable of identifying the nation’s constituent will.

2. Why it happened

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-37
Author(s):  
William Doyle
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Single Event ◽  
French Society ◽  
Financial Difficulties ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
The French Revolution

Describing why the French Revolution happened poses challenges. The French Revolution was not a single event; it was a series of developments that stretched over a number of years beginning between 1787 and 1789. ‘Why it happened’ attempts to outline the causes of the French Revolution by looking at the events leading up to the end of the 1780s. This was a period of uncertainty and confusion. What role did the monarchy have in causing the initial disquiet? Were the seeds of disorder already present in French society in the late 18th century? How important was France’s financial difficulties in causing a crisis?

1. Echoes

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
William Doyle
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
Western World ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
19Th Century Literature ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Century Literature ◽  
The French Revolution

‘Echoes’ examines the legacy of the French Revolution in the Western world through the lens of late 18th-century and 19th-century literature and culture. It considers writing by Edmund Burke and Thomas Carlyle, but it is Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859) that offers the most influential image that posterity has of the French Revolution. It took as its main theme the contrast between violent Paris and tranquil London. The images of this book define the French Revolution for many, and were reinforced elsewhere, for example in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905). Despite enjoying all the romance of the French Revolution in books and plays, did people really know what caused it?

scholarly journals The Rise and Fall of Modern Plagues

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
G. Terry Sharrer
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Scientific Collaboration ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Public Health Strategy ◽  
Weak Containment ◽  
Health Strategy ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Human Crowding

Millennia separate smallpox, the oldest pandemic, and COVID-19, the newest. Both calamities arose from an opportunistic virus amid human crowding. A vaccine for smallpox existed since the late 18th century, but it took worldwide public health strategy to eradicate it. COVID-19 proceeds against a hive of scientific collaboration, but succeeds, so far, from weak containment policies. COVID-19 was first identified in China, but it rose to become the American pandemic.

Nature, poetry and medicine in late 18th century England: a unified perspective of Erasmus Darwin

1976 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-537
Author(s):  
M. McNEIL
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Nature Poetry ◽  
Medicine And Philosophy ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Medical Theory ◽  
Lunar Society Of Birmingham ◽  
Organizational Principles ◽  
Century Science ◽  
Erasmus Darwin

Erasmus Darwin was the focus and embodiment of provincial England in his day. Renowned as a physician, he spent much of his life at Lichfield. He instigated the founding of the Lichfield Botanic Society, which provided the first English translation of the works of Linnaeus, and established a botanic garden; the Lunar Society of Birmingham; the Derby Philosophical Society; and two provincial libraries. A list of Darwin's correspondents and associates reads like a "who's who" of eighteenth century science, industry, medicine and philosophy. His poetry was also well received by his contemporaries and he expounded the evolutionary principles of life. Darwin can be seen as an English equivalent of Lamarck, being a philosopher of nature and human society. His ideas have been linked to a multitude of movements, including the nosological movement in Western medicine, nineteenth century utilitarianism, Romanticism in both Britain and Germany, and associationist psychology. The relationships between various aspects of Darwin's interests and the organizational principles of his writings were examined. His poetical form and medical theory were not peripheral to his study of nature but intrinsically linked in providing his contemporaries with a panorama of nature. A richer, more integrated comprehension of Erasmus Darwin as one of the most significant and representative personalities of his era was presented.

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