THE MAIN PAPER ON SUBSTITUTION AND THE THEORY OF TYPES.

DUMAS, JEAN BAPTISTE-ANDRE & J.S. STAS.

Premier Mémoire sur les Types Chimiques; Par M. J. Dumas. (+) Second Mémoire sur les Types Chimiques; par MM. J. Dumas et J.-S. Stas.

Paris, Fortin, Masson et Cie, 1840.

8vo. In contemporary half calf with gilt lettering spine and five raised bands. The original wrappers withbound in the back. In "Annales de Chimie et de Physique", tome 73. Entire volume offered. Paper label pasted on to top of spine. Two stamps to verso of title-page. A few light occassional brownspots, otherwise a fine copy. 73-103 (incl. Note de Liebig pp. 100-103) and pp. 113-166. [Entire volume: 448 pp. + 5 folded plates. 


This paper, which was published at the same year in "Comptes Rendues" (3 Fevrier), is the most importent on the theory of structural types and the nomenclature of organic compounds, refuting the electrochemical theory of Berzelius. "The development of this idea (type organique) into what is sometimes called the "Older Type Theory", as distinguished from Gerhardt's Type heory, is contained in Dumas' importent memoir on the substitution and the theory of types, presented on 3 febriary 1840."(Partington IV, p. 365). In the second paper Stas and Dumas record the first use of 'potash-lime', the precursor of soda-lime, an invaluable reagent in organic chemistry.

"Jean Baptiste Dumas advances a theory that the chemical properties of an organic compound are determined by its structure and not, as seems to be the case with inorganic compounds, by its electrical properties. he illustrates the concept with the example that the basic qualitative properties of acetic acid are retained even after replacing three fourths of the hydrogen by chlorine. As a consequence, he calls for a revision of chemical nomenclature for organic compounds, basing terms on common features, not on elemental composition."(Parkinson "Breakthroughs" 1840 C).

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