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The history of chemistry may be said to begin with the distinction of Chemistry from Alchemy by Robert Boyle in his work '' The Sceptical Chymist '' ( 1661 ). Both alchemy and chemistry are concerned with the nature of matter and its transformations but, in contrast with alchemists, chemists apply the Scientific Method . The history of chemistry is intertwined with the History Of Thermodynamics , especially through the work of Willard Gibbs .


EARLY DEVELOPMENTS


Origins

Although the archives of chemical research draw upon work from ancient Babylon , Egypt , and especially Persia after Islam, the birth of chemistry is often dated to Antoine Lavoisier 's discovery of the law of Conservation Of Mass , and thereby to his refutation of the Phlogiston Theory of Combustion in 1783 . (Phlogiston was supposed to be an imponderable substance liberated by flammable materials in burning.) Mikhail Lomonosov independently established a tradition of chemistry in Russia in the 18th Century . Lomonosov also rejected the phlogiston theory, and anticipated the Kinetic Theory of gases. He regarded Heat as a form of motion, and stated the idea of conservation of matter.


The vitalism debate and organic chemistry