1778 in science
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The year 1778 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Lagrange delivers his treatise on cometary perturbations to the Académie française.
Chemistry
- Molybdenum discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
- Antoine Lavoisier, considered "The father of modern chemistry",[1] recognizes and names oxygen, and recognizes its importance and role in combustion.[2]
Earth sciences and exploration
- January 18 â On his third voyage, Captain James Cook, with ships HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, becomes the first European to view the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean.[3]
- March 6 â October 24 â Captain Cook explores and maps the Pacific Northwest coast of North America from Cape Foulweather (Oregon) to the Bering Strait.
- James Rennell publishes a chart and memoir of the Agulhas Current, one of the first contributions to scientific oceanography.[4]
Medicine
- John Hunter publishes The Natural History of the Human Teeth.
- Samuel-Auguste Tissot begins publication of Traité des nerfs et de leurs maladies, including a classical account of migraine.[5][6]
- Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring describes the organization of the cranial nerves.
- Publication of Collection of observations on diseases and epidemic constitutions (Collection dâobservations sur les maladies et constitutions épidémiques), by Louis Lépecq de La Clôture, work consisting mainly of a 15-year observation of the relations between climate, geography and pathologies in Normandy.[7][8]
Technology
- Joseph Bramah patents an improved design of flush toilet in London.[9]
- The brothers Hans Ulrich and Johannes Grubenmann complete a bridge across the Limmat at Wettingen in Switzerland, a 60 m span which is the first known use of a true arch in a timber bridge.[10]
Zoology
- Petrus Camper publishes On the Points of Similarity between the Human Species, Quadrupeds, Birds, and Fish; with Rules for Drawing, founded on this Similarity, an early work of comparative anatomy.
- Johan Christian Fabricius publishes his Philosophia Entomologica in Hamburg.[11]
Awards
Births
- February 4 â A. P. de Candolle, Swiss botanist (died 1841)
- May 18 â Andrew Ure, Scottish industrial chemist and encyclopaedist (died 1857)
- December 6 â Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, French chemist and physicist (died 1850)
- December 17 â Humphry Davy, English chemist (died 1829)
- December 25 (bapt.) â Joseph Aspdin, English inventor (died 1855)
- Maria Dalle Donne, Bolognese physician (died 1842)
- Anna Maria Walker, Scottish botanist (died 1852)
Deaths
- January 10 â Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist, first to develop standard nomenclature for naming species (born 1707)
- February 20 â Laura Bassi, Italian scientist (born 1711)
- March 7 â Charles De Geer, Swedish industrialist and entomologist (born 1720)
- May 6 â Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet, French pharmacist and botanist (born 1720)