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350
YEARS
OF
SCIENCE
33
Descartes, in his
Treatise on Man
(1664), anticipated the
discoveries that would be made on the brain.
Pastel by Simon Vouet, from the collections of the Louvre. Identification of the model
to René Descartes by Alexandre Marr (
In Times Literary Supplement
, 13 March 2015,
pp 14-15). Thanks to Arnauld and Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée for transmitting this
information.
© gallica.bnf.fr - Bibliothèque nationale de France
© gallica.bnf.fr - Bnf
© The Artchives - Alamy
An experiment on a bird with the air
pump
– Joseph Wright of Derby's
painting, 1768 – recaptures the
observation made by Boyle.
© Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Harry Bréjat
the combination of carbon with some gas, mysterious at the time:
oxygen. A major step was taken when Lavoisier extended his
chemical theory to the respiration of living beings.
In cooperation with Laplace, he built the
calorimeter to measure the quantity of
heat that is released per unit of gas
carbon produced either by a flame
or by the respiration of a guinea-
pig:
the
measurements
being identical, Lavoisier
concluded that “
respiration
is combustion
”, like the
flame of a candle.