ABSTRACT
Oxygen was discovered independently by three scientists: Joseph Priestley, Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier.1,2
Priestley, in his experiment performed on 1 August 1774, was the first person to breathe this pure ‘dephlogisticated air’ and subsequently remarked ‘Who can tell but that in time this pure air may become a fashionable article of luxury’.1 Shortly after Lavoisiere named the gas, oxygène. Two hundred years later, thanks to technologic progress, oxygen has become a widely used lifesaving drug.
