Humphry Davy Facts
Humphry Davy Facts
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| Interesting Humphry Davy Facts: |
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| Humphrey Davy was born in Penzance, England, and moved to Ludgvan when he was nine. |
| During the school year he boarded with John Tonkin while he attended Truro Grammar School. |
| On 10 February 1795 he was apprenticed to a surgeon in Penzance and developed his life-long interest in chemistry in the apothecary's dispensary. |
| Dr. Thomas Beddoes and Professor Hailstone were working on a project on the Cornish coast when they met Davy. |
| Dr. Beddoes was looking for an assistant, and when shown Davy's paper, "Young Man's Researches on Heat and Light," offered him the post. |
| On 2 October 1798 Davy joined the Pneumatic Institution, which was established to study the medical powers of various gases. |
| During his experiments, Davy became addicted to nitrous oxide and in his notebooks observed that it might be an effective anesthesia in surgery. |
| He almost died in his experimental inhaling of quarts of carbon monoxide and described his pulse as "threadlike and beating with excessive quickness." |
| His many scientific writings include "On Heat, Light and the Combinations of Light," "On Phos-oxygen and its Combinations," and "Theory of Respiration." |
| In 1799 Count Rumford established the Royal Institution, and in 1801 Davy accepted a position as assistant lecturer in chemistry, directory of the chemistry laboratory, and assistant editor of the institution's journals. |
| On 25 April 1801 he gave his first lecture on the subject of Galvanism, and by June his lectures drew large audiences and garnered rave reviews. |
| By June 1802 Davy was promoted to full lecturer at the Royal Institute, and in November 1804 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. |
| He pioneered the use of electrolysis to split common compounds and discover the pure elements in their composition. |
| In 1907 he discovered potassium by using electrolysis on caustic potash and used the same technique on sodium hydroxide to isolate pure sodium. |
| He was the first to isolate magnesium, boron, and barium. |
| In 1810 he discovered that chlorine was an element and gave it its name. |
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