Eighteenth Century to Paul Bert

Abstract

It couldIT COULD be argued that the eighteenth century got off to a bad start from the point of view of respiratory and high-altitude physiology. In 1697, Georg Ernst Stahl (1660–1734) promulgated the phlogiston theory, which effectively set back progress on the elucidation of the respiratory gases by some 80 years. Furthermore, the closing decade of the century was also tragic from a scientific viewpoint because it was in 1794 that Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, France’s greatest chemist, and the first man to clearly understand the roles of the three respiratory gases—oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen—was guillotined at the height of his powers by a rabble extolling liberty, equality, and fraternity.