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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
122
After
some
months
Priestley
began
to
think
it
possible
that
the
new
"air"
he
had
obtained
from
calcined
mercury
might
be
fit
for
respiration.
To
his
surprise
he
found
that
a
mouse
lived
in
this
air
much
longer
than
in
common
air;
the
new
air
was
evidently
better,
or
purer,
than
ordinary
air.
Priestley
measured
what
he
called
the
"goodness"
of
the
new
air,
by
a
process
of
his
own
devising,
and
concluded
that
it
was
"between
four
and
five
times
as
good
as
common
air."
Priestley
was
a
thorough-going
phlogistean.
He
seems
to
have
been
able
to
describe
the
results
of
his
experiments
only
in
the
language
of
the
phlogistic
theory;
just
as
the
results
of
most
of
the
experiments
made
to-day
on
the
changes
of
compounds
of
the
element
carbon
cannot
be
described
by
chemists
except
by
making
use
of
the
conceptions
and
the
language
of
the
atomic
and
molecular
theory.[6]
[6]
I
have
given
numerous
illustrations
of
the
truth
of
this
statement
in
the
book,
in
this
series,
entitled
The
Story
of
the
Wanderings
of
Atoms.
The
upholder
of
the
phlogistic
theory
could
not
think
of
burning
as
possible
unless
there
was
a
suitable
receptacle
for
the
phlogiston
of
the
burning
substance:
when
burning
occurred
in
the
air,
the
part
played
by
the
air,
according
to
the
phlogistic
chemist,
was
to
receive
the
expelled
phlogiston;
in
this
sense
the
air
acted
as
the
pabulum,
or
nourishment,
of
the
burning
substance.
Inasmuch
as
substances
burned
more
vigorously
and
brilliantly
in
the
new
air
than
in
common
air,
Priestley
argued
that
the
new
air
was
more
ready,
more
eager,
than
ordinary
air,
to
receive
phlogiston;
and,
therefore,
that
the
new
air
contained
less
phlogiston
than
ordinary
air,
or,
perhaps,
no
phlogiston.
Arguing
thus,
Priestley,
of
course,
named
the
new
aeriform
substance
dephlogisticated
air,
and
thought
of
it
as
ordinary
air
deprived
of
some,
or
it
might
be
all,
of
its
phlogiston.
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