Daniel Rutherford

Daniel Rutherford ( born November 3, 1749 Edinburgh, † November 15, 1819 ) was a Scottish chemist and botanist. He is the discoverer of the chemical element nitrogen. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Rutherf. ".

Life and work

He was the son of the Edinburgh physician John Rutherford and his second wife Anne MacKay. Rutherford received his academic training at the University of Edinburgh. As a student, he was encouraged to study the properties of carbon dioxide by Joseph Black, who had previously discovered that a candle is not burned in this gas.

Rutherford put a mouse in an enclosed container with air until they died. Then he burned a candle until it went out. Then he burned phosphorus, so that it also went out. Next, he let the remaining air through a solution, the absorbed carbon dioxide. The remaining air left no combustion to more. About this experiment Rutherford reported in 1772.

Both Black and Rutherford were staunch supporters of the phlogistic conception, so they tried to explain the results in this way: when breathing the mouse and the candle burned, phlogiston was released into the air, carbon dioxide was formed. Once the carbon dioxide was absorbed later, the air was still full of phlogiston. In fact, the air was saturated, in their opinion, so that objects could not burn anymore. Because of this theory called the Rutherford newly isolated gas " phlogistic air ". Today we call it nitrogen.

In 1778 he described the " vital air ," the oxygen. 1786, he was appointed Professor of Botany in Edinburgh and was responsible for the local botanical garden.

Daniel Rutherford was an uncle of Sir Walter Scott and died on 15 November 1819 in Edinburgh.