Publication of Lavoisier's Elementary Treatise of Chemistry

Publication. Traité élémentaire de chimie is a textbook written by Antoine Lavoisier and published in 1789. A first edition from that year is documented, with its title page, woodcuts, and copperplate engravings attributed to Madame Lavoisier. The supplied passages do not state a publication city, so the Paris location remains unconfirmed by retrieved evidence.

English Translation. In 1790 the treatise appeared in English, translated from the French by Robert Kerr under the title Elements of Chemistry in New Systematic Order, Containing All Modern Discoveries, Illustrated with 13 Copperplates. The first edition of this translation was printed by William Creech; the bibliographic record names Edinburgh as its place of printing, a detail outside the event's declared place scope and therefore not asserted as an event location.

Scientific Content. The book defines an element as a single substance that cannot be broken down by chemical analysis and from which all chemical compounds are formed. It publishes Lavoisier's discovery that fermentation produces carbon dioxide (carbonic gas) and spirit of wine, which he said was more appropriately called by the Arabic word alcohol, since it forms from cider or fermented sugar as well as wine.

Chemical Equation. The treatise presents the first chemical equation, "grape must = carbonic acid + alcohol", a reaction Lavoisier called "one of the most extraordinary in chemistry". He noted that in these experiments one must assume a true balance or equation between the elements of the starting compounds and those obtained at the end of the chemical reaction.