Chemistry Flashcards
What was the importance of alchemy to chemistry (ie., what did it provide to chemistry)?
it provided chemistry with techniques of analysis, materials (glassware), procedures, and concepts that were fundamental to development of chemistry
What were some deficiencies of alchemy as a science?
it was mystical
not quantitative
there was no established theory of matter guiding their operations except the vague text of the Emerald Tablet
There was no real understanding of what they were doing because their fundamental goal was to change metal into gold and to fulfill mystical goals
What was Paracelsus’ real name?
Philippus Aureolus Theophastrus Bombastus von Hohenhelm
What does “Paracelsus” mean?
better than Celsus - Celsus was a well-known ancient Roman encyclopedist
What was Paracelsus’ life like? Did he have a formal education?
He studied at multiple universities to study medicine, but inevitably gave up academia to travel and get different experience and be a travelling doctor
he was known to be a drunk and some people loved him and some did not like him at all
Who was Paracelsus? What science was he involved in?
He was a 15th century alchemist and physician even though he probably didn’t have an actual medical degree
Did Paracelsus have a medical degree? How did this influence his career?
He most likely didn’t have a legitimate medical degree but regardless he had a private physician practice and used simple, inexpensive medicines
Who was known (self-proclaimed) to be a “double doctor?”
Paracelsus… even though he didn’t have a medical degree
Was Paracelsus liked during his career?
Not by colleagues, but often by patients
Where did Paracelsus teach medicine? How long did this professorship last and how did it end?
at the University of Basel
even appointed City Physician of Basel at one point
short-lived, he publicly burned Avicenna and Galen’s works during a lecture and he was thrown out of Basel in a few months
How did Paracelsus display his obvious disdain for academia and academic culture during his time in Basel?
wELL
1) gave his public lecture in German, rather than the international academic language, Latin - so that anyone could understand
2) he displayed his own poop to discuss digestion in his public lecture
3) he allegedly burned the works of Avicenna and Galen in his public lecture
What was Paracelsus’ approach and philosophy to medicine?
anti-authoritarian
the only ancient author that is worthwhile is Hippocrates
medicine should be function-focused, not form - dissections on cadavers is useless and ‘dead anatomy’
life is a chemical process and chemistry is key to understanding human function and medicine
the ‘archeus’ is a mystical, internal alchemisty which controls functions
illness is caused by defects in body chemistry and there should be a specific chemical therapy for each disease
choice of drugs for treatment should be partly based on astrology (macrocosm/microcosm)
choice of drugs should also be based on the Doctrine of Signatures
Which ancient author did Paracelsus respect?
Hippocrates
What aspect(s) of Paracelsus’ philosophy and approach to chemistry and medicine aligns with ancient Chinese ideas regarding the macro/microcosm?
Paracelsus believed that the choice of drug for treatment should be based on astrology and there existed a correspondence between planets, metals, and parts of body
What was iatrochemistry? Who coined this idea and how is it relevant today?
Paracelsus’ approach to understanding human function and to medicine which centralized chemical processes
this was pre-meditated by Avicenna and is accepted today
What was archeus?
Some force (unclear) described by Paracelsus which controls human body function - some mystical internal alchemical agent
How did Paracelsus borrow from Islamic medicine and science in his approach to medicine?
He was alchemical and mystical in much of his approach but mainly he thought:
Like Avicenna, that chemistry should be central to medicine (iatrochemistry)
there should be specific, simple, and quantitative chemical therapy for each disease (opposite of polypharmacy)
What was the Doctrine of Signatures? give an example
Idea coined from Culpepper’s “English Physician” but not a new concept
The use of plants as medicine based on the idea that a plant’s form tells you what it’s purpose is or which ailment it can treat - it’s signatured with a purpose
ex. liverleaf looks like a liver so it must be able to treat illnesses of the liver
How did Paracelsus treat wounds?
by keeping them clean and letting them self-heal
How did Paracelsus treat syphilis?
low doses of mercury to slow the progression of the disease
What was the alternative to Paracelsus’ wound treatment?
cauterization or amputation
How did Paracelus use metals and minerals for various complaints?
salt
mercury
sulphur
hydrogen - acids and metals = gas
zinc
Which two other drugs are associated with Paracelsus?
laudanum - opium powder in alcohol
sweet vitriol - an ether
How important were Paracelsus’ religious beliefs to his approach to science?
very, they influenced him heavily - he thought science and religion were inseparable
people thought he was a pantheist though
While Paracelsus had a good understanding of the importance of chemistry to medicine, where did his views become too mystical?
he believed astrology should inform drug choice for treatments
What is the balance sheet for Paracelsus?
He thought like a chemist, like a biochemist, but he also thought like a mystic
Who was Jan Baptista Van Helmont (1679-1644)? Who inspired him?
a Flemish mystic, physician, chemist
Inspired by Paracelsus and believed in the idea of iatrochemistry (chemistry is at the center of human function and should be central to medicine)
How did Van Helmont demonstrate conservation of matter in his experiments?
in chemical reactions, he recorded that when dissolving metal in acid, the combined weight of the 2 does not change
How was Van Helmont concept of matter reminiscent of Thales’?
Like Thales, Van Helmont thought everything is made of water (except for air)
Describe Van Helmont’s willow tree experiments and what he concluded from them?
considered the first plant physiology experiment
it was quantitative
he watered a willow tree for 5 years and observed that it gained 164 lbs, this was could not be explained from the soil which instead lost 2 oz during that time = the tree was using water to grow
What was the first plant physiology experiment?
Van Helmont’s willow tree experiment
What did Van Helmont think about air?
he thought it didn’t have a chemical make up and believed that there were different kinds of air (or vapours or spirits)
What was significant about Van Helmont’s approach (methods) to studying plants?
he used quantitative methods
Describe Van Helmont’s charcoal experiment and his conclusions
he burned 62 lbs of charcoal and found that it produced 1 lb of ash and vapours that would not support the burning of a candle (flame of candle goes out in the vapours from burning charcoal)
How did Van Helmont study and learn about different kinds of air?
quantitatively
he compared how different vapours from burning ash, alcohol or the fermentation of wine affected the flame of a candle in a closed jar
What did Van Helmont mean by “chaos?”
he was talking about gas
What was fermentation to Van Helmont?
the process of food use by animals, alcoholic fermentation and the burning of wood (all the same process)
it showed the underlying unity of living and non-living processes
How did Van Helmont’s idea of fermentation highlight the unity of non-living and living processes?
he thought that the process by which animals digest and use food, how alcohol is fermented and how wood burns are all the same process
Which 2 guys are major characters for the chemical nature of digestion?
Franciscus Sylvius (1614-1672)
Rene Antoine Ferchault Reaumur (1683-1757)
Who was Franciscus Sylvius (1614-1672) and what were his major contributions to chemistry?
He removed the mystical alchemical component of Paracelsus’ and Van Helmont’s iatrochemistry by putting it into an entirely natural framework (ie., no archeus)
also invented what is now called gin and tonic as a medicine for kidneys
What did Slyvius contribute to the understanding of animal digestion?
he was interested in acids and alkalis and noticed that they cancel each other out to make a salt = he thought that digestion needs both (later described as pancreatic secretions and bile)
thought illness result from imbalance of acids and alkalis
WHat alcohol and popular cocktail can be attributed to Slyvius? What did he originally use it for?
Gin and tonic
He created a medicine for kidney ailments from a distilled grain flavoured with juniper berries and with the addition of tonic which was used to treat malaria (not his idea)
Who was Reaumur (1683-1757)? What were his major interests and contributions?
he was mainly interested in: is digestion physical or chemical process?
he concluded based on his studies that digestion is a chemical process
How did Reaumur discover the chemical process involved in digestion?
he put a metal cylinder with meat inside into the stomach of a hawk and found that the meat had been partially digested = not physical
he used a sponge soaked with digestive secretions from the bird and found that it partially digested the meat = chemical process
What was phlogiston and phlogiston theory? What is phlogiston NOT?
a key theory in the 18th century
the PRINCIPLE (concept) of combustion
phlogiston is NOT another word for CO2, nor is it a reference to any atom or molecule - it is a PRINCIPLE/CONCEPT
T or F: phlogiston does not exist and it never did
true, it’s not an object, atom, molecule, or thing - it’s a concept
What question was phlogiston invented to answer?
Why does air in an enclosed space support combustion at first, but not later?
ie., a candle in a jar will burn for a while but eventually will go out
Who coined the concept of phlogiston?
Johann Becher (1635-1681)
Who was Johann Becher? What did he contribute?
He invented the phlogiston concept and believed that wood is made up of ash and ‘terra pinguis’ and when wood burns, it releases terra pinguis
he was an alchemist/chemist in the 17th century but also known as a conman who robbed rich people and tried to alleviate poverty across Europe
What is terra pinguis?
the concept (principle) of inflammability
Becher thought that when wood (made up of ash and terra pinguis) was burned, it would release terra pinguis
this aligns with the principle of phlogiston - combustion
Aside from being a chemist, what ‘humanitarian’ work did Becher do in the 17th century?
he tricked rich people into giving him money cause he was an alchemist who could turn silver into something else and he stole the silver to distribute it to he poor in Europe
Who coined the term phlogiston?
George Ernst Stahl
Who was George Ernst Stahl (1660-1742)? what did he do and think?
He renamed the concept of ‘terra pinguis’ to ‘phlogiston’
he thought the flame of candle was heated air caused by the loss of phlogiston from a rapidly burning material
he also thought that rusting was the same, but slower, process as combustion - no flame produced
because air can hold phlogiston with a limited capacity, he thought that different materials must have different kinds of phlogiston
Who was Joseph Black? What did he do?
he discovered and named fixed air (now known as CO2)
he did this by observing that burning, fermentation, and activities of animals produced a substance that was deadly to animals and could extinguish a flame = he isolated and quantified this substance
Who discovered ‘fixed air’?
Joseph Black (1728-1799)
How did Joseph Black quantitatively show fixed air?
he isolated it by
fixed air + lime = calcium carbonate (a precipitate of CO2) can be weighed = how much fixed air you had to start with
WHat is fixed air?
a substance released from burning, fermentation and activities of animals that was deadly to animals and could extinguish a flame (CO2)
Who was Joseph Priestley (1733-1804)? What did he do?
a chemist
from mercuric oxide, he produced a new substance = dephlogisticated air (oxygen)
What is dephlogisticated air?
discovered by Joseph Priestley
he isolated it from mercuric oxide = ‘removed phlogiston from air’ - he found that the candle burned longer in a jar when the phlogiston was removed
he was talking about oxygen
How did Joseph Priestley relate dephlogisticated air to physiology?
He thought that animals release phlogiston into the air via respiration just as combustion does
he thought venous blood was loaded with phlogiston from the tissues and is released from the body via the lungs and arterial blood has no phlogiston
How did Joseph Priestley connect dephlogisticated air to plant physiology?
he observed that plants were able to restore dephlogisticated air and therefore must be able to take up phlogiston from the atmosphere (now known as photosynthesis)
Who discovered photosynthesis? how?
Jan Ingen-Housz (1730-1799)
he observed that the green parts of plants restored injured air (removed phlogiston from the air) but only in sunlight
and that they release phlogiston in darkness
Who coined the oxidation theory?
Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794)
he quantitatively studied and measured respiration and combustion in animals with an ice calorimeter
What is an ice calorimeter? who invented it? for what purpose?
Lavoisier’s invention to quantify the heat released by a process which consumed oxygen and released carbon dioxide
he concluded: heat released = equal with respiration and combustion
Who was the first to disregard the concept of phlogiston and dephlogisticated air? What did he rename it?
Lavoisier disregarded this principle and renamed dephlogisticated air ‘oxygen’
How did the oxidation theory by Lavoisier provide a link between living and non-living processes?
he used his ice calorimeter for animals and for candle flames and found the ratios of heat production to be the same
Which 2 guys were major in establishing the atomic theory?
Louis-Joseph Proust (1788)
John Dalton (1766-1844)
Who was Louis-Joseph Proust (1788)? What did he do?
he determined that elements combine into compounds in simple, constant ratios based on weight
ie., he discovered the Law of Definite Proportions
key to atomic theory
Who was John Dalton (1766-1844)? What did he do?
he explained Proust’s result: if each compound is made of atoms, then atoms must have a fixed weight and each compound must consist of specific numbers of each kind of atom
this was key to atomic theory
What else did John Dalton do not in relation to the atomic theory?
he established daily data collection for studying weather - he was interested in meteorology
Which 2 guys were majorly involved in the in vitro synthesis of organic molecules?
Friedrich Wohler (1800-1882)
Hermann Kolbe (1818-1884)
What did Friedrich Wohler (1800-1882) synthesize?
in vitro (out of)
urea
What did Hermann Kolbe synthesize?>
acetic acid
How did the atomic theory + Lavoisier’s work contribute to the in vitro synthesis of organic molecules?
chemical understanding is necessary for biological understandings especially in terms of functional biology
