In 1874, thirty five men solemnly gathered at a grave sight in Northumberland, Pennsylvania.聽They had come to lay the foundations for the American Chemical Society, which would eventually become the largest scientific society in the world.聽Why did they assemble in such a somber setting?聽Because, in America, there was no place symbolically more appropriate for this event than the grave of Joseph Priestley.
Priestley was born in England in 1733 and became a Unitarian minister.聽A chance meeting with Benjamin Franklin kindled his interest in science and spurred him to write a book on The History of Electricity.聽Although he became more and more interested in science, Priestley still regarded the ministry as his primary calling.聽An opening in a Unitarian Church in Leeds gave him the opportunity to launch his career as a preacher.聽By luck, it also gave him the opportunity to launch his scientific career.聽Priestley's home in Leeds happened to be next to a brewery which gave off plenty of vapors.聽He became interested in these "airs" as he called them, particularly in the one that was responsible for the bubbles in beer.聽This "fixed air" he recognized as the same gas that made certain naturally occurring spring waters effervescent.聽Health resorts in Europe were serving such fizzy waters as supposed cures for various illnesses and Priestley began to wonder whether or not water could somehow have an artificial fizz added to it.
Joseph Black had already shown that "fixed air" could be produced by the action of acids on marble.聽So Priestley combined sulfuric acid and chalk to form carbon dioxide, although he of course did not recognize the gas as such.聽He collected the gas in a pig's bladder and found a way to use it to carbonate water.聽He was awarded the Royal Society's prestigious Copley Medal for his publication on "Directions for Impregnating water with Fixed Air."聽Soda water, as the fizzy stuff was called, became very popular.聽聽It was taken along on ocean voyages because it tasted better than the usual, stored stagnant water.聽It also developed a false reputation as a preventative against scurvy and other diseases.聽Soda water was actually sold in apothecary shops.聽But John Nooth, a Scottish physician, complained that the use of a pig bladder imparted an off flavour to the water, and to solve the problem, developed a glass apparatus for carbonating water.聽This found widespread use in shops and homes.聽The soda boom had begun.
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