Daniel RutherfordBorn 3 Nov 1749; died 15 Nov 1819 at age 70.Scottish chemist and photographer who discovered the portion of air that does not support combustion, now known to be nitrogen. After letting a mouse live in a confined quantity of air until it died, he burned a candle and burned phosphorus in the same air as long as they would burn. He assumed the remaining gas was carbon dioxide, which he dissolved by passing it through a strong alkali. Yet there remained gas that was incapable of supporting respiration or combustion which he knew no longer contained oxygen or carbon dioxide. He called it “phlogisticated air,” following the phlogiston theory of Georg Stahl. It was later properly described by Antoine Lavoisier. Rutherford also designed the first maximum-minimum thermometer.* |
