Description
The front cover pictures of this issue are of 2 eminent and inspiring men, who I would simply like to repeat the stories of for any readers who are not aware of this, as they had pivotal roles in chemistry and human respiratory physiology and therefore by implication everything we do. They are Joseph Priestly and Antoine Lavoisier, who are linked in their discovery of oxygen and it’s role within the body and are also linked in their suffering for their beliefs. Priestly lived next door to a brewery and became interested in the waste gases produced by fermentation. He discovered that the gas given off by heating mercuric oxide caused a much brighter flame than plain air. In 1774, he showed that this gas was essential not only to combustion, but also to respiration and to the greening of plants. He demonstrated that air in which a candle would no longer burn and a mouse no longer live, would regain its former vital properties if green plants were kept within the sealed chamber. He eventually managed to isolate 10 new gases, including nitrous oxide and carbon monoxide, invented carbonated beverages, gum rubber erasers, and refrigeration. In 1791 his Birmingham home was burned by a royalist-sectarian mob incensed by his support of the French revolution and he subsequently emigrated with his family to Pennsylvania in 1794. He was one of the great social and political minds of the Enlightenment. He had a significant influence on his good friend Thomas Jefferson, and had his portrait painted by the most famous American painter of the time, Gilbert Stuart (first image on front cover).
Antoine Lavoisier is often described as France’s greatest chemist. He discovered that phosphorus and sulfur gained weight when burned by combining with a constituent of air, completely contrary to the perceived wisdom of the day which postulated that all matter contained phlogiston which burned so therefore all matter should lose mass after Combustion. After being visited by Priestly, who described his new gas in which a candle could burn with a much brighter flame than usual, Lavoisier realized that it was this gas that had combined with his phosphorus and sulfur. He postulated that this gas is required to combine with all fuel when burning takes place and together with the mathematician Pierre Simon de Laplace (1749-1827), Lavoisier concluded that the generation of heat in a fire was in principle the same process as that taking place in the body. Both processes required Priestley’s new gas, which Lavoisier now called oxygen, and led to the production of carbon dioxide and water, disproving the longstanding phlogiston theory of combustion. Despite taking part in the French revolution, Lavoisier was sent to the guillotine in 1794 partly as he was an aristocat, but more probably due to the personal revenge of Jean-Paul Marat. His friend the mathematician LaGrange lamented the beheading saying: It took them only an instant to cut off that head, but France may not produce another like it in a century.
The link to this issue is simply the physiological implications of oxygen and other gases discussed in the data interpretation section, but I wonder who will be our famous remembered figures from our time, scientists, politicians, environmentalists, Humanitarians? Meanwhile I hope you enjoy this issue with excellent articles on evidence based management of Aortic Aneurysms and Awareness articles which I believe all of us can take elements to directly translate into our clinical practice.
