DAVY, HUMPHRY - FOUNDATION OF ELECTRO-CHEMISTRY - FIRST GERMAN EDITION.

Ueber die chemischen Wirkungen der Electricität. (Vorgelesen in der königl. Societät zu London, als Bakerian Lecture am 20sten Novemb. 1806). Frei übersetzt von Gilbert. 2 Theile.

(Halle, Rengerschen Buchhandlung, 1808). Without wrappers as published in "Annalen der Physik. Herausgegeben von Ludwig Wilhelm Gilbert", Bd. 28, Erstes u. Zweites Stück. Pp. 1-160 a. 1 folded engraved map. + pp. 161-256 a. 1 engraved plate.The entire issues offered. Davy's paper: pp. 1-43. a. pp. 161-202.

First German edition of ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTENT CONTRIBUTIONS EVER MADE TO CHEMICAL SCIENCE, as Davy here outlined a theory of mass action, forcast the use of electricity in atomic disintegration and announced the isolation by electrolytic methods of two new elements, sodium and potassium. He used the most powerful electric battery of the time, a voltaic pile, invented 1800 by Volta.
"Humphrey Davy...was among the first to investigate the decomposition of water. In 1806 he delivered a Bakerian Lecture (the paper offered here in the German version) before the Royal Society of London "On some chemical agencies of electricity" (1807), which pointed out several fallacies in the theory of electrolysis. Davy's experiments on the chemical effects of electrical currents on substances, causing their decomposition, led to his discovery of several new elements: potassium (1807), sodium (1807), barium (1808), calcium (1808), and boron (1808)" (Milestone of Science No. 52) - Davy's first Bakerian Lecture won a Prize from Napoleon, even though France and England were at War. - Partington vol. IV pp. 42 ff. - PMM No 255 (note). - Parkinson, Breakthroughs: 1807 C.

The issue contains also Heron de Villefosse: "Nivellement des Harzgebirges mit dem Barometer", pp. 49-114 a. 1 engraved folded map.


Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry." This paper was central to any chemical affinity theory in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Order-nr.: 44096