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First edition, second issue, of the work which introduced modern chemical terminology, among the most fundamental scientific texts of the 18th century. The folding tables outline the first taxonomic system of chemical substances arranged according to their composition, a system which proved immediately influential; even established figures like Priestley felt obliged to adopt the new terminology. The late 18th century witnessed considerable debates over the theory and practice of chemistry. The chief theoretical shift was the identification of oxygen in place of the hypothesized phlogiston, which led many contemporaries to view the existing chemical terminology as outdated and confused. This move was largely driven by Lavoisier (1743-1791) and his fellow authors of the Méthode, Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau (1737-1816), Claude-Louis Berthollet (1748-1822), and Antoine-François de Fourcroy (1755-1809). In the Méthode, they develop a systematic nomenclature, largely derived from oxygen theory, arguing that chemical substances should be named according to their constituents. Simple substances should receive simple names and compounds should receive complex names deriving from their constituents. "The new terms were soon translated and adapted into other languages and became the basis of the modern nomenclature of inorganic chemistry. In the purely pragmatic terms of the terminology used, modern chemistry therefore starts in 1787" (Crosland, p. 411). There were two issues of the first edition: this second is identified by misnumbering pages 258-9, 262-3, 266-7, and 270-1. The first edition itself (there were two in 1787) is identified by the woodcut on the title page depicting a cherub supervising distillation. Duveen & Klickstein 126; Norman 1291. Maurice Crosland, "Chemistry and the chemical revolution", in The Ferment of Knowledge: Studies in the Historiography of Eighteenth-century Science, 1980. Octavo (185 x 120 mm), pp. [4], 314. With 7 folding tables, woodcut title page vignette, head- and tailpieces. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with foliate decoration in gilt, brown calf label lettered in gilt, raised bands, covers with single fillet border in blind, marbled endpapers, edges red, pink silk bookmarker. Later pencil annotation to upper margin of p. 9. Light bumping and rubbing, minor stripping to covers, tail of front joint neatly repaired, front inner hinge split but holding firm, loss to lower outer corner of half-title, inner margin of leaf G7, and outer margin of rear free endpaper (none affecting text), a couple of closed tears to initial folding table, contents otherwise clean: a very good copy.
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