#Saltpeter definition full#

There he equipped a fine laboratory, which attracted young chemists from all over Europe to learn about the “Chemical Revolution” then in progress. In 1775 Lavoisier was appointed a commissioner of the Royal Gunpowder and Saltpeter Administration and took up residence in the Paris Arsenal. Title page of Traité Élémentaire de Chimie by Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, 1789. Madame Lavoisier prepared herself to be her husband’s scientific collaborator by learning English to translate the work of British chemists like Joseph Priestley and by studying art and engraving to illustrate Antoine-Laurent’s scientific experiments. In the same year he bought into the Ferme Générale, the private corporation that collected taxes for the Crown on a profit-and-loss basis.Ī few years later he married the daughter of another tax farmer, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, who was not quite 14 at the time. On the basis of his earliest scientific work, mostly in geology, he was elected in 1768-at the early age of 25-to the Academy of Sciences, France’s most elite scientific society.

#Saltpeter definition full#

His real interest, however, was in science, which he pursued with passion while leading a full public life. The son of a wealthy Parisian lawyer, Lavoisier (1743–1794) completed a law degree in accordance with family wishes.

He established the law of conservation of mass, determined that combustion and respiration are caused by chemical reactions with what he named “oxygen,” and helped systematize chemical nomenclature, among many other accomplishments. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, a meticulous experimenter, revolutionized chemistry.