Black, Joseph (1728-1799)

1 autograph letter addressed to the physician and astonomer Dr James Lind, Windsor, Berkshire on the 13th November 1784, concerning Henry Cavendish's inflammable air experiments in the year 1766. Joseph Priestley is also mentioned.

Nov 1784

1 file (1 letter)

Purchased from Stevens, London, March 1931 (acc.56477).

Black was a chemist and a physician: he studied at both Glasgow University and Edinburgh University and made his first chemical identification of a gas when researching for his graduate thesis in 1754. In 1756 Black became a lecturer at Glasgow , where his main research was conducted on the process of heat transfer. Black was a sometime practicing physician and was cloasely involved with two major scottish institutions of his time including the Royal infirmary of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians. He also belonged to the Royal Societies at London and Edinburgh and by invitation of Lavoisier became one of eight foriegn members of the Academy of Sciences at Paris. Despite his prestige, Black published very little during his career. In 1803 his Lectures on Chemistry were publisheed posthumously. He is considered the founder of the age of pneumatic chemistry.