Louis-Bernard Guyton De Morveau

PARA QUITARLE EL POLVO Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau Jaime Wisniak* Resumen Dijon was the ancient capital of Burgundy and Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau (1737-1816) es the seat of the French provincial parliaments or royal considerado uno de los más importantes miembros courts of law. The venality of the administration had del grupo de científicos franceses que en siglo die- incited the royal power, lacking enough income, to ciocho destronaron la teoría del flogisto y establecie- multiply without limit the number of offices and ron el marco de la química moderna. Su contribución officers. A seat in a parliament, which carried with it al estudio de la afinidad química, al establecimiento social prestige and exemption from certain taxes, de normas racionales de nomenclatura química, y al could be bought and sold. In 1762, Nicolas Generau, desarrollo de la educación superior fue decisiva en one of the two avocat-général du Roi in the Dijon una época crítica de la ciencia en Francia. Durante parliament, had to resign to his office in order to pay la mayor parte de su vida Guyton fue un firme his creditors. Guyton’s father took advantage of this partidario de la teoría del flogisto, pero eventualmen- opportunity to purchase this position for his son te aceptó los descubrimientos de Lavoisier y ayudó a Louis Bernard for the sum of forty thousand francs establecerlos como hechos irrefutables. (according to Bouchard the sum was thirty-four thousand). Bouchard (1938) mentions two interesting facts, one that Guyton’s appointment required the Life and career especial permission by the King because at that time Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau (1737-1816) (Figure 1) he was only twenty-five years old, which was below was born on January 4, 1737, at Dijon, France, the the legal requirement of thirty years, and the sec- eldest son of Marguerite Desaulle and Antoine Guy- ond, that the annual income report did not exceed ton, a lawyer and professor of French law at the 1500 livres of which 1300 went for paying the ser- Université de Dijon. His father was descendent from vants and the rest represented the value of the can- an ancient and respectable family originating from dles and salt paid in kind. Beaune and Autun that included many surgeons, After his appointment Guyton added to his lawyers, and military officers. Louis-Bernard’s name de Morveau, from a family property near the younger brother, Philibert, was born in 1738 and, as city and retained this name, signing himself simply was the custom, took the habits and devoted himself De Morveau until the French revolution, when, like to counselling and writing (Bouchard, 1938; Gran- many Frenchmen, he dropped the de and became ville, 1817; Smeaton, 1957) Guyton-Morveau, then Guyton, and finally Guyton- Louis-Bernard received his basic education at Morveau again (Smeaton, 1957). home, with private teachers engaged by his father Guyton served as avocat-général for twenty years and afterwards, at the age of ten, entered the Collège until March 26, 1783, when he retired and was given Godran, a secondary school at Dijon managed by the title of avocat-général honoraire, together with a the Jesuits and providing a classical education, with pension and certain hereditary privileges. After re- little teaching of sciences. He finished school in 1753 tirement he published his most important legal at the age of sixteen and then entered the Faculty of speeches in a book entitled Discours Publics et Éloges Law of Dijon to study law, from where he graduated (Guyton de Moveau, 1775) that also included a letter in 1756. In the same year he was admitted to the bar to a fictitious correspondent, in which he delineated and then practiced law for six years. his plan for reforming the French legal system. Guy- ton proposed nominating a committee of judges to interpret the different regulations and to establish in * Department of Chemical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel 84105. France ‘‘une jurisprudence simple, uniforme, uni- E-mail: [email protected] verselle et constante’’ (a simple, uniform, universal Recibido: 3 de septiembre de 2002; aceptado: 15 de diciem- and constant jurisprudence). bre de 2002. According to Bouchard (1938) Guyton was not 180 Educación Química 14[3] PARA QUITARLE EL POLVO in good relations with his colleagues. In one oppor- gout et guider les tunity he spoke about ‘‘ces magistrates qui croient arts mécaniques’’ (to que les tribunaux sont de superbes boutiques où ils popularize science revendant en detail l’autorité qu’il sont achetée’’ in order gain adepts (these judges that believe that the courts are superb to spread the taste boutiques where they retail the authority they have and guide the me- purchased). Another important quote is from a chanical arts). speech he made in 1777 criticizing the chaotic state Guyton was of French legislation: ‘‘Que pensera la postérité, now recognized as a lorsqu’elle verra un seul code, un seul législateur et leading authority on deux cent quatre-vingt-cinq codes différents?’’ (What chemistry and in will posterity say when they will see one people, one 1780 he was commis- legislator and 285 different legal codes?). sioned to write the Guyton parliamentary duties kept him very four Suppléments busy, but he found time for other activities and on (supplementary) vol- January 20, 1764 he was elected an honoraire member umes of the chemical Figure 1. Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau (1737-1816). of the Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de volumes of the new Dijon. At first he read only literary contributions at Encyclopédie Méthodique. This major work was in- its meetings but he became so interested in science tended to replace the great Encyclopédie of Denis that in 1768 he acquired a house in the Place St. Jean Diderot (1713-1784) and Jean Le Rond D’Alembert in Dijon, fitted it with a laboratory, and thenceforth (1717-1783) in which articles on all subjects were devoted to chemistry all the time he could spare from arranged in one alphabetical sequence; in the new his parliamentary duties. He became such a strong Encyclopédie each subject was now treated separately. believer in the power of chemistry that he declared The supplements contain about twelve entries carry- that in the eighteenth century anyone who consid- ing Guyton’s name on such varied subjects as acids, ered himself well informed should blush if he had no affinity, air, combustion, calcinations, crystallization, knowledge of this science (Bouchard, 1938). dissolution, hepar, the lightning conductor, phlogis- He carried out research in a wide variety of ton, and steel. The most important entry is the one topics, and many of his papers appeared in the about acids (Acide); it contains 415 pages (more than Mémoires of the Dijon Academy and in the monthly fifty percent of the pages of volume I) and encom- journal Observations sur la Physique. In 1772 he publish- passes a study of all the acids known at that time. It ed his first scientific book, Disgressions Académiques is a good testimony of the many wrong ideas preva- (Guyton de Morveau, 1772), containing the two long lent at that time; for example, the formation of acids and important essays on chemical affinity and on was due to ‘‘le feu l’air fixe’’ (acids originated by the phlogiston, Dissertation sur le Phlogistique Considerée action of the fixed air fire, carbon dioxide). In his Comme Corps Grave and Essai Physico-Chymique Sur la entry Hépar Guyton condemned the use of the word Dissolution et la Crystallization, Pour Parvenir à la Ex- foie (liver) in such names as foie de soufre and foie plication des Affinités Par la Figure des Parties Consti- d’arsenic. These names, he said, were absolutely im- tuants des Corps, and a third short one, Observation sur proper being based solely on the purely accidental une Nouvelle Espèce de Guhr (a colloidal form of silica). red colour of the substances. He replaced the word Guyton many activities led to his appointment foie by the Latin equivalent hépar, as word with no as correspondent (corresponding) member of the common association. The class hépars, thus freed Académie Royale des Sciences in March 1772, shortly from any common association, was enlarged by before the publication of his first book Disgressions. In Guyton to include all salts with three components; the same year he became vice-chancellor of the the sulfides were among these, being thought of a Dijon Academy and in 1781 he was elected to be its base combined with sulfuric acid and phlogiston chancellor. During his administration the Académie (Smeaton, 1954). de Dijon, was changed from an intellectual to a Guyton de Morveau’s reputation is based more teaching establishment. In his own words, the pur- on his dedication to the teaching of chemistry and its pose of the Académie should be ‘‘de vulgarizer la application to industry, that on his experimental science pour lui recruter des adeptes, en répandre le work, that nevertheless were numerous. The most Julio de 2003 181 PARA QUITARLE EL POLVO important of the latter are the use of zinc white in directed it during three years. He retired from the paint, discovery of the disinfecting action of chlorine, École Polytechnique about 1811 but retained the im- the principles of volumetric analysis, and particu- portant post of Administrator of the Mints (until 1814) larly, the first coherent essay ever about chemical to which he had been appointed by Napoleon in nomenclature and classification. 1799, as well as continued to be an active editor of He practiced chemistry for eleven years and Annales de Chimie, of which he had been one of the then published his classes under the title Elémens de founders in 1789 (Bouchard, 1938; Granville, 1817).

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