Article ID: CBB416789495

Spallanzani, la chimica e la “variazione accettabile” (2020)

unapi

On April 1st 1795, after three months of laboratory experiments on respiration, something odd caught Lazzaro Spallanzani’s attention: to his great surprise, he noticed an increasing presence of nitrogen in the air flowing through the lungs of test subjects. Following this observation, Spallanzani started verifying the experimental data obtained by the German chemist J.F.A. Göttling, who – against Lavoisierians – believed nitrogen capable of reactivity. This paper reconstructs the evolution of Spallanzani from his early endorsement of Göttling’s thesis to its complete refutation (1796). In doing so, Spallanzani developed a well-structured experimental procedure and successfully used the concept of “acceptable variation.” Still, his gruelling work on gases had no substantial impact on his biological research. The production of nitrogen remained an unexplained fact, and until his death (1799) he continued his search for acceptable coefficients of variation. But in this case, he did not find firm criteria to separate – as he said – the “costante” from the “accidentale.”

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Authors & Contributors
Monti, Maria Teresa
Piccolino, Marco
Centro Studi Lazzaro Spallanzani
Hendriksen, Marieke M. A.
Steinle, Friedrich
Schickore, Jutta
Journals
Substantia: An International Journal of the History of Chemistry
Mefisto: Rivista di medicina, filosofia, storia
Technikgeschichte: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Technik und Industrie
Revue de Synthèse
Physis: Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza
Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza
Publishers
Fondazione Museo Storico del Trentino
Springer
Olschki
Franco Angeli
Edizioni Pendragon
Edizioni ETS
Concepts
Experiments and experimentation
Chemistry
Physiology
Biology
Respiration
Medicine
People
Spallanzani, Lazzaro
Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent
Redi, Francesco
Göttling, Johann Friedrich August
Vallisneri, Antonio
Diacinto Cestoni
Time Periods
18th century
17th century
19th century
16th century
Early modern
20th century
Places
Italy
Europe
Germany
Leipzig (Germany)
South America
Netherlands
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