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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
119
Boyle
published
his
experiments
and
opinions
concerning
the
action
of
fire
on
different
substances
in
the
seventies
of
the
17th
century;
Stahl's
books,
which
laid
the
foundation
of
the
phlogistic
theory,
and
confirmed
the
alchemical
opinion
that
the
action
of
fire
is
essentially
a
simplifying
action,
were
published
about
forty
years
later.
But
fifty
years
before
Boyle,
a
French
physician,
named
Jean
Rey,
had
noticed
that
the
calcination
of
a
metal
is
the
production
of
a
more
complex,
from
a
less
complex
substance;
and
had
assigned
the
increase
in
weight
which
accompanies
that
operation
to
the
attachment
of
particles
of
the
air
to
the
metal.
A
few
years
before
the
publication
of
Boyle's
work,
from
which
I
have
quoted,
John
Mayow,
student
of
Oxford,
recounted
experiments
which
led
to
the
conclusion
that
the
air
contains
two
substances,
one
of
which
supports
combustion
and
the
breathing
of
animals,
while
the
other
extinguishes
fire.
Mayow
called
the
active
component
of
the
atmosphere
fiery
air;
but
he
was
unable
to
say
definitely
what
becomes
of
this
fiery
air
when
a
substance
is
burnt,
although
he
thought
that,
in
some
cases,
it
probably
attaches
itself
to
the
burning
substances,
by
which,
therefore,
it
may
be
said
to
be
fixed.
Mayow
proved
that
the
air
wherein
a
substance
is
burnt,
or
an
animal
breathes,
diminishes
in
volume
during
the
burning,
or
the
breathing.
He
tried,
without
much
success,
to
restore
to
air
that
part
of
it
which
disappears
when
combustion,
or
respiration,
proceeds
in
it.
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