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Primary sourceBook1787

Méthode de nomenclature chimique

Antoine Lavoisier, Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Claude-Louis Berthollet, Antoine François de Fourcroy · 1787

A 1787 book co-written by Lavoisier that created the systematic chemical naming system still used today.

Lavoisier co-authored this book, helping create the systematic chemical language that underlies his later work.

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Title page of the book 'Méthode de nomenclature chimique', printed in Paris in 1787. It lists authors de Morveau, Lavoisier, Bertholet and de Fourcroy, with a vignette of alchemical-style scientific instruments and a red library stamp on the left.
Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet and Fourcroy, Méthode de nomenclature chimique, 1787.

About this source

What it is

This book was published in Paris in 1787, written jointly by Antoine Lavoisier, Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Claude-Louis Berthollet, and Antoine François de Fourcroy. It lists old alchemical names for substances alongside new, systematic chemical names.

Why it matters

Before this book, chemical substances were often known by confusing or mystical names inherited from alchemy. This collaborative work replaced them with a logical naming system based on chemical composition, much of which is still used by chemists today. It shows chemistry becoming an organized, shared science rather than a collection of individual traditions.

Look closer

  • Why might four chemists have worked together on this book instead of one person doing it alone?
  • Compare an old name and a new name for the same substance in the list — what information does the new name give that the old one does not?
  • Why would a shared naming system matter for scientists working in different countries?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Antoine Lavoisier on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Title page of a 1789 French book: 'Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, présenté dans un ordre nouveau et d'après les découvertes modernes, par M. Lavoisier', nouvelle édition, Tome Premier, à Paris chez Cuchet, Libraire, rue & hôtel Serpente, MDCCLXXXIX.Book

Primary source

Traité Élémentaire de Chimie

Antoine Lavoisier · 1789

Painting of a seated man in a black coat with white lace cuffs at a red draped table, with a standing woman in a white gown and powdered curled hair leaning beside him. Scientific apparatus, papers, and a quill are on the table, with a glass globe on the floor.Painting

Primary source

Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife

Jacques-Louis David · 1788

A black-painted ice calorimeter with brass and iron fittings, including a large metal wheel-shaped lever, a tall central column, a cylindrical basin, and a glass bell jar over a dark box, displayed in a museum with a wall sign reading 'ire de Lavoisier' and glass cabinets behind.Artifact

Primary source

Lavoisier's ice calorimeter

Antoine Lavoisier and Pierre-Simon Laplace · c. 1782-1783

Black and white engraved plate titled Planche IV showing numbered laboratory apparatus: distillation flasks, glass tubes, bell jars, pneumatic troughs, furnaces, and labeled vessels with letter markings. Signed Paulze Lavoisier sculpt at bottom right.Artifact

Primary source

Scientific Apparatus Used by Lavoisier in Studying Chemical Reactions

Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier

Scanned handwritten French legal document, a procès-verbal of execution of death, dated Year II of the Republic, with handwritten signatures and a 'Lavoisier' name at top right, and an Empire Française Direction Générale des Archives stamp on the left.Document

Secondary source

Death Warrant of Lavoisier

Republic of France · 1794

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