Black, Joseph 1728-99
Scottish chemist

Born in Bordeaux, France, the son of a wine merchant, he was educated at Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh. In his MD thesis of 1754 he showed that the causticity of lime and the alkalis is due to the absence of the 'fixed air' (carbon dioxide) present in limestone and the carbonates of the alkalis. With this discovery he was the first person to realize that there are gases other than air, and his experimental method laid the foundations of quantitative analysis. In 1756 he succeeded William Cullen as Professor of Anatomy and Chemistry at Glasgow, but soon after exchanged duties with the professor of the Institutes of Medicine, practising also as a physician. Between 1756 and 1761 he evolved the theory of 'latent heat' on which his scientific fame chiefly rests. In 1766 he succeeded Cullen in the chair of medicine and chemistry at Edinburgh. Black was also a successful industrial consultant and was widely consulted on problems such as bleaching and dyeing, iron-making, ore analysis, fertilizers and water supplies. Famed as a teacher, his chemistry classes drew students from all over the UK, Europe and America.

Bibliography: William Ramsay, Life and Letters of Joseph Black (1918)