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- Born:
- May 24, 1640, London, Eng.
- Died:
- October 1679, London (aged 39)
- Subjects Of Study:
- oxygen
- respiration
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John Mayow
English chemist and physiologist
John Mayow (born May 24, 1640, London, Eng.—died October 1679, London) was an English chemist and physiologist who, about a hundred years before Joseph Priestley and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, identified spiritus nitroaereus (oxygen) as a distinct atmospheric entity.
Though a doctor of law from the University of Oxford (1670), Mayow made medicine his profession. His writings include a remarkably correct anatomical description of respiration and a recognition of the role of oxygen in the combustion of metals.
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