How Did Joseph Priestley Obtain Oxygen

Joseph Priestley was a famous scientist during the 18th century best known for is discovery of oxygen. He was born in Birstall, England on March 24, 1733. When Joseph was a boy he attended many different schools. He was sick very often when he was little this caused him to miss a lot of school. He began to learn to teach himself at home. This skill became very useful to him, as he got older. He then could very easily teach himself new concepts without a teacher. Then in 1752 Joseph began to attend Daventry Academy, he thrived in this environment. This Academy allowed him to get an excellent education in philosophy, science, and literature. Joseph then graduated in 1755, after receiving his education most of the jobs he received had to do with
The way he discovered oxygen is by the heating up of red mercuric oxide when he found that a candle would easily burn and a mouse was able to live and breath in this air, he first called it dephlogisticated air. He however did not know he discovered a different type of air. After his experiment worked he met with Antoine Lavoisier who is a French chemist who conducted the same experiment. Then they both came to the conclusion they discovered a new element (oxygen) and that it is the moving element in the air. Joseph Priestley’s major contributions to the biology community were discovering nitrogen and oxygen since combined they make up 99% of the earth’s atmosphere. Joseph Priestley’s different discoveries are used for many different things today, like nitrous oxide many dentists use this during procedures to create numbness or use it as an anesthesia. Carbon monoxide, another one of his discoveries, is a very poisonous gas that can kill people without them even knowing it. Sulfur dioxide is a well-known disinfectant. All of his discoveries have affected us in some way shape or form, some with a huge impact such as oxygen and nitrogen but it just
The regular people of the public had no idea that there were different elements in the air.
The discovery of oxygen was very influential and changed the ideas of many people but the idea of oxygen has changed exponentially since its discovery. Now we don’t just know about a few elements we have and entire periodic table of elements all of which we discovered here on earth. We also know oxygen is a good chunk of the atmosphere and humans cannot and many other animals cannot live without it. During this time period there were many different scientist that had other discoveries and inventions. A very famous scientist at the time was Louis Pasteur, who discovered fermentation and the need to vaccinate for viruses and also invented pasteurization. Thomas Newcomen was another inventor during this time; he invented the first practical steam engine allowing people to abandon horses and walking to have steamships cars and trains. Benjamin Franklin was also born in this era. Benjamin Franklin discovered the existence of electricity and also came up with the terms positive and negative. Another very famous scientist and mathematician during the 18th century was Isaac Newton. He created the 3 laws of motion and was also considered