Daniel Rutherford
Daniel Rutherford (3 November 1749 – 15 December 1819) was a Scottish physician, chemist and botanist who is most famous for the isolation of nitrogen in 1772.
Daniel Rutherford
Rutherford discovered nitrogen by the isolation of the particle in 1772. When Joseph Black was studying the properties of carbon dioxide, he found that a candle would not burn in it. Black turned this problem over to his student at the time, Rutherford. Rutherford kept a mouse in a space with a confined quantity of air until it died. Then, he burned a candle in the remaining air until it went out. Afterwards, he burned phosphorus in that, until it would not burn. Then the air was passed through a carbon dioxide absorbing solution. The remaining component of the air did not support combustion, and a mouse could not live in it.