Stal biography

The German doctor and chemist, the creator of the theory of Flogiston Georg Ernst Stagus was born on October 21 according to other sources - G. - GG. From G. in the city of Stal, he was elected professor of medicine of the university in Galle that had just opened. There he taught the basics of medicine and worked in the clinic, conducted extensive theoretical and experimental research in the field of chemistry.

Stal was invited to Berlin to the position of court doctor of the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I. In Berlin, he became president of the medical collegium - the highest medical institution of Prussia. Thanks to his efforts in Berlin, a medical and surgical collegium was founded to prepare military doctors. Stagnaya entered the history of chemistry as the author of the theory of phlogiston from the Greek.

The term itself is found even in Aristotle, and then among a number of doctors and chemists of the Middle Ages, but the first sketch of the doctrine of one of the “principles” of macrocosm, the combustible “fat land” gave the predecessor of Stal I. according to the theory of the stall, all the combustible bodies into the tonies of metals turn into warden, and the bodies - into “lime”.

If these “deflogged” formations are calcined with coal rich in phlogiston, then they will return their phlogiston and again become metals. Further, according to Stali, the phlogiston is released when burning into the air, from where it is “perceived” by plants and goes from them to animals. Here he participates in the processes of breathing, fermentation, decay.

The theory of phlogiston has become the first generalizing scientific concept to help not only explain many observations, but sometimes make discoveries, for example, the idea of ​​phlogistone was used by T. Lovitz, which discovered adsorption by coal of dissolved substances. The theory of phlogiston prevailed until the x, and the search for this substance led to the establishment of many new facts and the discovery of new substances.

Based on the theoretical provisions of the theory, it turned out to be possible to understand the features of metallurgical processes and improve the quality of smelted metals. Stal's phlogiston theory was the first theory of scientific chemistry, thanks to which chemistry was freed from alchemy.

The experimental facts obtained during the dominance of the ideas of phlogistone helped A. Lavoisier to identify J. Pristley oxygen with a real antipode of phlogiston and create an oxygen theory of combustion. Biographies of great chemists. Translation from it. Bykova G. Volkov V. Outstanding chemists of the world.