LAVOISIER, LAURENT-ANTOINE. - Celebrated chemist, b. in Paris on 26 Aug. 1743, d. there on 8 May 1794. He was the first to explain the true function of oxygen, discovered by Priestley and Scheele, as an essential element of respiration and combustion, thus overthrowing the erroneous theory of phlogiston, which had nevertheless contributed to the progress of science and had been accepted by the scientists of the time. He clarified the concept of the chemical element and experimentally demonstrated the law of the conservation of mass.
The discoveries and studies of L. are set forth in the Traité élémentaire de chimie (Paris 1789; 2nd ed. there 1793; 3rd ed. there 1937), collected in the Oeuvres complètes de L. A. L. in 6 large volumes edited by J.-B. Dumas (Paris 1857-96), and celebrated in the works devoted to L. by Grimaux, Dumas, Berthelot, Guareschi, and in all treatises on the history of chemistry.
Scientific integrity, private and public virtues, and his sentiments of humanity and charity (he, a « fermier général », that is, a tax contractor, supported tax exemption for the poor) were confirmed by the philosophical tranquility and resignation with which he faced the sentence imposed upon him as an enemy and starver of the people. Born into a religious family, he always retained the convictions of a Catholic Christian.
IBL.: M. Berthelot, La révolution chimique et L., Paris 1890; E. Grimaux, L. d'après sa correspondance, ses manuscrits, there 1896; I. Guareschi, Suppl. ann. all'Éuc. chim., XIX (1903), pp. 307-468; H. Metzger, Introduction à l'étude du rôle de L. dans l'histoire de la chimie, in Archivio di storia della scienza, 1932 (no. 1); M. Giua, Storia della chimica, Turin 1946, p. 75 SEE.