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Education, Apprentice and poetry Humphry Davy was born at Penzance in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, on 17 December 1778. At age 9, Davy was put in the care of his mother's adopted father, John Tonkin. From the Penzance school Davy went in 1793 to Truro Grammar School, finishing his education there under the Rev. Dr. Cardew, who, in a later letter to Davies Gilbert, said dryly: “I could not discern the faculties by which he was afterwards so much distinguished.” Davy said himself: “I consider it fortunate I was left much to myself as a child, and put upon no particular plan of study... What I am I made myself.”[4] After the death of Davy's father in 1794, Tonkin apprenticed the boy to John Bingham Borlase, a surgeon with a large practice at Penzance. Davy's indenture is dated 10 February 1795. In the apothecary's dispensary, Davy became a chemist, and a garret in Tonkin's house was the scene of his earliest chemical operations. Davy's friends would often say: “This boy Humphry is incorrigible. He will blow us all.” His eldest sister complained of the ravages made on her dresses by corrosive substances.[4] Much has been said of Davy as a poet, and John Ayrton Paris somewhat hastily says that his verses "bear the stamp of lofty genius". Davy's first production preserved bears the date of 1795. It is entitled ‘The Sons of Genius’, and is marked by the usual immaturity of youth. Other poems produced in the following years, especially On the Mount's Bay and St Michael's Mount, are pleasingly descriptive verses, showing sensibility but no true poetic imagination. Davy was also a painter and three of his paintings dating from circa 1796 have been donated to the Penlee House museum at Penzance. One of these is of the view from above Gulval showing the church, Mount's Bay and the Mount, while the other two depict Loch Lomond in Scotland.[5][6] Davy soon abandoned poetry for science. While writing verses at the age of seventeen in honour of his first love, he was eagerly discussing with his Quaker friend and mentor Robert Dunkin the question of the materiality of heat. Dunkin once remarked: ‘I tell thee what, Humphry, thou art the most quibbling hand at a dispute I ever met with in my life.’ One winter day he took Dunkin to Larigan river,[7] to show him that the rubbing of two plates of ice together developed sufficient energy by motion to melt them, and that the motion being suspended the pieces were united by regelation. This was, in a rude form, an elementary version of an analogous experiment later exhibited by Davy in the lecture-room of the Royal Institution, which excited considerable attention.[4] As professor at the Royal Institution, Davy would later repeat many of the ingenious experiments which he had learned from his friend and mentor Robert Dunkin. Early scientific interests Davies Giddy, afterwards Davies Gilbert, accidentally saw Davy in Penzance, carelessly swinging on the half-gate of Dr Borlase's house. Gilbert was interested by the lad's talk, offered him the use of his library, and invited him to his house at Tredrea. This led to an introduction to Dr Edwards, who then resided at Hayle Copper House, and was also chemical lecturer in the school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Dr Edwards permitted Davy to use the apparatus in his laboratory, and appears to have directed his attention to the floodgates of the port of Hayle, which were rapidly decaying from the contact of copper and iron under the influence of seawater. Galvanic corrosion was not then understood, but the phenomenon prepared the mind of Davy for his experiments on the copper sheathing of ships in later days. Gregory Watt, the son of James Watt, visited Penzance for his health's sake, and lodging at Mrs Davy's house became a friend of her son and gave him instructions in chemistry. Davy also formed a useful acquaintance with the Wedgwood family, who spent a winter at Penzance.[4] Dr Thomas Beddoes and Professor Hailstone were engaged in a geological controversy upon the rival merits of the Plutonian and the Neptunist hypotheses. They travelled together to examine the Cornish coast accompanied by Davies Gilbert, and thus made Davy's acquaintance. Beddoes, who had recently established at Bristol a ‘Pneumatic Institution,’ required an assistant to superintend the laboratory. Gilbert recommended Davy for the post, and Gregory Watt, in 1798, showed Beddoes the ‘Young man's Researches on Heat and Light,’ which were subsequently published by him in the first volume of ‘West-Country Contributions.’ Prolonged negotiations were carried on, mainly by Gilbert. Mrs Davy and Borlase consented to Davy's departure, but Tonkin desired to fix him in his native town as a surgeon, and actually altered his will when he found that Davy insisted on going to Dr Beddoes. In 1809, it is said that Davy actually invented the first electric light. He connected two wires to a battery and attached a charcoal strip between the other ends of the wires. The charged carbon glowed, making the first arc lamp. The Pneumatic Institution James Watt in 1792 by Carl Frederik von Breda On 2 October 1798, Davy joined the ‘Pneumatic Institution’ at Bristol. This institution had been established for the purpose of investigating the medical powers of factitious airs and gases, and to Davy was committed the superintendence of the various experiments. The arrangement concluded between Dr. Beddoes and Davy was a liberal one, and enabled Davy to give up all claims upon his paternal property in favour of his mother. He did not intend to abandon the profession of medicine, being still determined to study and graduate at Edinburgh, but he soon began to fill parts of the Institution with voltaic batteries. During his residence at Bristol, Davy formed the acquaintance of the Earl of Durham, who became a resident for his health in the Pneumatic Institution, and close friendships with Gregory Watt, James Watt, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, all of whom became regular users of Davy's nitrous oxide (laughing gas), to which Davy would become addicted. The gas was first synthesized by the English natural philosopher and chemist Joseph Priestley in 1772, who called it phlogisticated nitrous air (see phlogiston).[8] Priestley published his discovery in the book Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), where he described how to produce the preparation of "nitrous air diminished", by heating iron filings dampened with nitric acid.[9] James Watt built a portable gas chamber to facilitate Davy's experiments with the inhalation of nitrous oxide. At one point these were combined with wine to judge the efficacy of the gas as a cure for hangover (his laboratory notebook indicated success). The gas was popular among Davy's friends and acquaintances, and he noted that it might be useful for performing surgical operations.[10] Anesthetics would not be regularly used in medicine or dentistry until decades after Davy's death.[11] Davy threw himself energetically into the work of the laboratory and formed a long romantic friendship with Mrs Anna Beddoes, who acted as his guide on walks and other fine sights of the locality.[12] In December 1799 Davy visited London for the first time, and his circle of friends was there much extended.[4] In these gas experiments Davy ran considerable risks. His respiration of nitric oxide may have led, by its union with common air in the mouth, to the formation of nitric acid (HNO3), which severely injured the mucous membrane, and in Davy's attempt to inhale four quarts of 'pure hydrocarbonate' gas in an experiment with carbon monoxide he ‘seemed sinking into annihilation.’ On being removed into the open air, Davy faintly articulated, ‘I do not think I shall die,’ but some hours elapsed before the painful symptoms ceased.[4] Davy was still able to take his own pulse as he staggered out of the laboratory and into the garden, and he described it in his notes as 'threadlike and beating with excessive quickness'. In this year the first volume of the ‘West-Country Collections’ was issued. Half of the volume consisted of Davy's essays ‘On Heat, Light, and the Combinations of Light,’ ‘On Phos-oxygen and its Combinations,’ and on the ‘Theory of Respiration.’ On 22 February 1799 Davy, writing to Davies Gilbert, says: ‘I am now as much convinced of the non-existence of caloric as I am of the existence of light.’ In another letter written to Davies Gilbert, on 10 April, Davy informs him: I made a discovery yesterday which proves how necessary it is to repeat experiments. The gaseous oxide of azote (the laughing gas) is perfectly respirable when pure. It is never deleterious but when it contains nitrous gas. I have found a mode of making it pure.’ He then says that he breathed sixteen quarts of it for nearly seven minutes, and that it ‘absolutely intoxicated me.’ During this year Davy published his ‘Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration.’ In after years Davy regretted that he had ever published these immature hypotheses, which he himself subsequently designated as ‘the dreams of misemployed genius which the light of experiment and observation has never conducted to truth.’[4] Davy's later time at the Pneumatic Institution was spent partially in experimentation In 1800, Davy informed Davies Gilbert that he had been ‘repeating the galvanic experiments with success’ in the intervals of the experiments on the gases, which ‘almost incessantly occupied him from January to April.’ The Royal Institution In 1799, Count Rumford had proposed the establishment in London of an ‘Institution for Diffusing Knowledge’, i.e. the Royal Institution. The house in Albemarle Street was bought in April 1799. Rumford became secretary to the institution, and Dr. Garnett was the first lecturer. 1802 satirical cartoon by James Gillray showing a Royal Institution lecture on pneumatics, with Davy holding the bellows and Count Rumford looking on at extreme right. Dr Garnett is the lecturer, holding the victim's nose. Davy's ‘Researches,’ which was full of striking and novel facts, and rich in chemical discoveries, soon attracted the attention of natural philosophers, and Davy now made his grand move in life. Joseph Banks had long had his eye on Davy, and in February 1801 Davy was officially interviewed by Banks, Benjamin Thompson (who had been appointed Count Rumford) and Henry Cavendish, the Committee of the Royal Institution. Davy wrote to Davies Giddy on 8 March 1801 about the offers made by Banks and Thompson, a possible move to London and the promise of funding for Davy's work in galvanism. In that letter he also mentioned that he might not be collaborating further with Beddoes on therapeutic gases. The next day Davy left Bristol to take up his new post at the Royal Institution,[11] it having been resolved ‘that Humphry Davy be engaged in the service of the Royal Institution in the capacity of assistant lecturer in chemistry, director of the chemical laboratory, and assistant editor of the journals of the institution, and that he be allowed to occupy a room in the house, and be furnished with coals and candles, and that he be paid a salary of 100l. per annum.’[4] On 25 April 1801, Davy gave his first lecture on the relatively new subject of 'Galvanism'. He and his good friend Coleridge had had many conversations about the nature of human knowledge and progress, and Davy's lectures gave his audience a vision of human civilization brought forward by scientific discovery. "It [science] has bestowed on him powers which may almost be called creative; which have enabled him to modify and change the beings surrounding him, and by his experiments to interrogate nature with power, not simply as a scholar, passive and seeking only to understand her operations, but rather as a master, active with his own instruments."[11] The first lecture garnered rave reviews, and by the June lecture Davy wrote to John King that his last lecture had attendance of nearly 500 people. "There was Respiration, Nitrous Oxide, and unbounded Applause. Amen!"[11] Davy's lectures also included spectacular and sometimes dangerous chemical demonstrations for his audience, a generous helping of references to divine creation, and genuine scientific information. Not only a popular lecturer, the young and handsome Davy acquired a huge female following around London, and nearly half of the attendees pictured in Gillray's cartoon are female. When Davy's lecture series on Galvanism ended, he progressed to a new series on Agricultural Chemistry, and his popularity continued to skyrocket. By June 1802, after just over a year at the Institution and at the age of 23, Davy was nominated to full lecturer at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Garnett quietly resigned, citing health reasons.[11] In November 1804 Davy became a Fellow of the Royal Society, over which he would later preside. He was one of the founding members of the Geological Society in 1807[13] and was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1810. Discovery of new elements Sodium metal, about 10 g, under oil A voltaic pile Magnesium metal crystals Davy was a pioneer in the field of electrolysis using the voltaic pile to split common compounds and thus prepare many new elements. He went on to electrolyse molten salts and discovered several new metals, including sodium and potassium, highly reactive elements known as the alkali metals. Davy discovered potassium in 1807, deriving it from caustic potash (KOH). Before the 19th century, no distinction had been made between potassium and sodium. Potassium was the first metal that was isolated by electrolysis. Davy isolated sodium in the same year by passing an electric current through molten sodium hydroxide. Davy discovered calcium in 1808 by electrolyzing a mixture of lime and mercuric oxide.[14][15] Davy was trying to isolate calcium; when he heard that Berzelius and Pontin prepared calcium amalgam by electrolyzing lime in mercury, he tried it himself. He worked with electrolysis throughout his life and was first to isolate magnesium, boron, and barium. Discovery of chlorine Chlorine was discovered in 1774 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who called it "dephlogisticated marine acid" (see phlogiston theory) and mistakenly thought it contained oxygen. Davy showed that the acid of Scheel's substance, called at the time oxymuriatic acid, contained no oxygen. This discovery overturned Lavoisier's definition of acids as compounds of oxygen. In 1810, chlorine was given its current name by Humphry Davy, who insisted that chlorine was in fact an element.[16] Popular public figure Davy revelled in his public status, as his lectures gathered many spectators. He became well known due to his experiments with the physiological action of some gases, including laughing gas (nitrous oxide), once stating that its properties bestowed all of the benefits of alcohol but was devoid of its flaws. Davy later damaged his eyesight in a laboratory accident with nitrogen trichloride.[17] Pierre Louis Dulong first prepared this compound in 1812, and lost two fingers and an eye in two separate explosions with it. Davy's own accident induced him to hire Michael Faraday as a coworker. European travels Sir Humphry Davy, 1830 engraving based on the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) A diamond crystal in its matrix In 1812, Davy was knighted, gave a farewell lecture to the Royal Institution, and married a wealthy widow, Jane Apreece. (While Davy was generally acknowledged as being faithful to his wife, their relationship was stormy, and in later years he travelled to continental Europe alone.) In October 1813, he and his wife, accompanied by Michael Faraday as his scientific assistant (and valet), travelled to France to collect a medal that Napoleon Bonaparte had awarded Davy for his electro-chemical work. While in Paris, Davy was asked by Gay-Lussac to investigate a mysterious substance isolated by Bernard Courtois. Davy showed it to be an element, which is now called iodine.[18][19] The party left Paris in December 1813, travelling south to Italy.[20] They sojourned in Florence, where, in a series of experiments conducted with Faraday's assistance, Davy succeeded in using the sun's rays to ignite diamond, proving it is composed of pure carbon. Davy's party continued to Rome, and also visited Naples and Mount Vesuvius. By June 1814, they were in Milan, where they met Alessandro Volta, and then continued north to Geneva. They returned to Italy via Munich and Innsbruck, and when their plans to travel to Greece and Istanbul were abandoned after Napoleon's escape from Elba, they returned to England. Sir Humphry Davy (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a Cornish chemist and inventor.[1] He is best remembered today for his discoveries of several alkali and alkaline earth metals, as well as contributions to the discoveries of the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity[2] "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry."[3] He was a 1st Baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), and Fellow of the Geological Society (FGS). |
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