How Was Oxygen Named?

Oxygen was initially illustrated by Michal Sedziwoj, who was a Polish alchemist and philosopher in the late 16th century. Sedziwoj thought of the gas given out by temperate nitre as "the elixir of life".

Oxygen was more quantitatively revealed by a Swedish pharmacist known as Carl Wilhelm Scheele around the year 1773, but his discovery wasn't made available until the autonomous detection done by Joseph Priestley on August 1st, 1774, he described the gas as dephlogisticated air. Priestley circulated his discoveries in the year 1775 and Scheele did it in the year 1777. Thus Priestley is generally given the credit. Both Scheele and Priestley created oxygen by heating mercuric oxide.

Scheele described this gas as 'fire air' because it was the only recognized supporter of combustion.

The word oxygen is taken from a Greek word that meant something like "acid former". It was so named by Antonie Lavoisier. This French chemist believed incorrectly that oxygen was a necessity in the formation of all acids. It was so named in the year 1775. It was also referred to as "fire air" and "dephlogisticated air" before it was called oxygen. Though oxygen was discovered much earlier than 1774, chemists back then failed in recognizing it.

In the Universe Oxygen is the third most abundant element and it constitutes twenty one percent of the earth's atmosphere. Half of the mass contained in the earth's crust is also oxygen. Two parts out of three of our bodies are made of oxygen and nine parts of ten of water is oxygen.