Phlogiston theory
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The phlogiston theory, a superseded scientific theory, postulated the existence of a fire-like element dubbed phlogiston contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. The name co
The alchemist and physician J. J. Becher proposed the phlogiston theory.
Georg Ernst Stahl
Joseph Priestley
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Joseph Priestley was an English chemist, Unitarian, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator and classical liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works
Phlogiston theory
…and by other scientists. Phlogiston theory led to experiments that ultimately resulted in the identification (c. 1771), and naming (1777), of oxygen by Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier, respectively. Phlogiston theory states that phlogisticated substances contain phlogiston and that they dephlogisticate when…
Portrait, c. 1797
Priestley's birthplace (since demolished) in Fieldhead, Birstall, West Yorkshire – about six miles (10 km) southwest of Leeds
Mary Priestley, by Carl F. von Breda (1793)
Priestley's "electrical machine for amateur experimentalists", illustrated in the first edition of his Familiar Introduction to the Study of Electricity (1768)