History of Chemistry

• Pre-Historic Man - beginning of chemistry when prehistoric man used fire to do crude metallurgy and to make pottery and bricks. First metal used were gold, copper and silver.

• 400 B.C. - beginning of chemistry as a science when the four-element theory was proposed (earth, air, fire, water). Aristotle proposed that there were also four fundamental properties - hot, cold, wet, dry.

• First Century - combination of the arts of the Egyptians and the philosophical speculations of the greeks form the beginning of a body of chemical knowledge. The first book of chemistry was written in Egypt (Chemistry meant "Egypt Art"). The beginning of alchemy in China.

• Twelfth Century- alchemy reached Europe. Alchemy - science concerned with transmutations of one element into another. (Proponents hoped to change base metals, such as iron and copper into gold)

• Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century - chemistry applied to medicine. Study of gases begun. First textbook of chemistry was written in 1597. Robert Boyle studied gases and criticized the basic ideas of alchemy in his book "The Skeptical Chemist".

• Eighteenth Century - Phlogiston Theory was proposed by George Ernst Stahl based on earlier theories of Johann Becher (Phlogiston is a substance in combustible material that is given off when the material burns). Carl Scheele, Joseph Priestly, Joseph Black and Henry Cavendish worked on gases. Careful quantitive work of Antoine Laurant Lavoisier (father of modern chemistry).

• Nineteenth and Twentieth Century - John Dalton proposed the atomic theory. The development of the periodic law and periodic table  was constructed by Dmitri Mendeleev. Further development and application of these theory/ theories.