Scottish physician and chemist · 1749–1819
Daniel Rutherford
Daniel Rutherford isolated nitrogen in 1772 for his doctoral thesis, as a student of Joseph Black in Edinburgh.
How Nitrogen was found
Black had found that burning and breathing produce “fixed air”, carbon dioxide. He asked Rutherford to study the air left behind. Rutherford burned candles and kept mice in a sealed vessel, then removed the fixed air with alkali.
What remained would not support flame or life. He called it “noxious air”, and in the language of the time believed it was air saturated with phlogiston. Scheele, Priestley and Cavendish made similar observations, but Rutherford published first.
Life and career
Born 1749 · Died 1819
Rutherford was born in Edinburgh and studied medicine at its university. He travelled in Europe before returning to practise as a physician.
In 1786 he became professor of botany at Edinburgh and keeper of its botanic garden. He was the uncle of the novelist Sir Walter Scott.
Discovered in the same era
Other elements identified within ten years of 1772.