Rutherford, Daniel

Daniel Rutherford ( November 3, 1749 - November 15, 1819 ) - Scottish doctor, chemist and botanist. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh , where he received a doctorate in medicine in 1772 for a work entitled De aere fixo dicto aut Mephitico ("On the so-called fixed and mephitic air"), carried out under the supervision of J. Black .

Daniel Rutherford
Daniel Rutherford
Date of Birth
Place of Birth
Date of death
Place of death
A country
Scientific field	botany , chemistry
Place of work
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Known as	wildlife systematic, nitrogen discoverer
Awards and prizes	[d]

Rutherford described in the composition of the products of coal, phosphorus and sulfur combustion a new gas - “mephitic ^[5] air” that does not support respiration and combustion, which, unlike carbon dioxide (“fixed air”), is not absorbed by the alkali solution. Rutherford and Black mistakenly considered him phlogiston-rich air. “Mephitic air” was obtained somewhat earlier by G. Cavendish as a result of repeated transmission of ordinary air over red-hot coal and absorption of the resulting carbon dioxide (“fixed air”) with alkali. However, Cavendish did not publish the results of this study in a timely manner, so the priority of the discovery of nitrogen is usually attributed to D. Rutherford. Later A. Lavoisier showed that “mephitic air" is a substance of elemental nature and called it nitrogen .

Since 1777, a member of the Society of Physicians in Edinburgh , and since 1786, a professor of botany at the University of Edinburgh.