Collection of chemical samples, 1875-1900
Inv. V10202

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was one of the pioneers of modern chemistry, His famous Traité élémentaire de chimie of 1789 listed 33 elements. In 1871, when Mendeleev published his periodic system, exactly twice as many were known. The number of chemical substances was already too great to count.The collection depicted from the same period consists of 152 specimens, including 49 elements. The opiates are well represented. This is probably a reference collection of an apothecary, who could use it to test the purity of his own substances. Some methods, such as spectroscopy, were already so sensitive by the nineteenth century that very little material was needed.