Adolphe Wurtz - La théorie atomique - 1879

Adolphe Wurtz. The Atomic Theory. Paris, Librairie Germer Baillière, 1879, 248 pp., 32 pp.

An octavo volume (220x140 mm), aubergine publisher-backed bookcloth. Wear and rubbing on the boards and spine, cloth at the corners torn. Interior fresh, rare foxing.

Second edition

Treatise on chemistry that presents the history, the foundations, and the implications of the atomic theory as it was understood at the end of the 19th century. Wurtz outlines the evolution of atomic ideas from Dalton and Gay‑Lussac to the modern notions of atomicity, analyzing the laws of chemical proportions, the volumes and atomic weights, the relationships between atoms and molecules, and the role of atoms in the constitution of chemical bodies.