Uiteenzettingen van het stelsel van Lavoisier door Nederlanders in het laatste kwart van de achttiende eeuw. Een bijdrage tot de historiografie van de scheikunde in Nederland

Abstract

SUMMARY: Dutch expositions of the oxidation theory of Lavoisier in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. A contribution to the historiography of chemistry in the Netherlands. The adoption of the antiphlogistic system of Lavoisier in the Netherlands is one of the culminating points in the history of chemistry in that country. At the end of the eighteenth century the dutch chemists were the first adherents of the system of Lavoisier. They published not only a number of excellent articles about the new system, but they also carried out a great number of original experiments in favour of Lavoisier's theory. A clear exposition of this system was given for the first time by van Marum (1787) and Nieuwland (1791); furthermore Nahuys (1788) and de Fremery and van Werkhoven (1800) are to be mentioned. The last two gave a literal translation of Lavoisier's «Traite elementaire de Chimie» in the dutch language. In the great Lavoisier-bibliography, Duveen and Klickstein mentioned only the translation by de Fremery and van Werkhoven and the work of Nieuwland as expositions of Lavoisier's theory in the dutch language. Recently McKie in his preface to the facsimile-edition of the english translation of Lavoisier's work gives the same information: Partington also gave only these two dutch works. It is the purpose of this article to give wider information about the abovementioned dutch expositions of Lavoisier's work in order to get a fair idea about the contributions of these scientists in the spreading of the new chemistry in the Netherlands.