English chemist and physiologist who first suggested the existence of oxygen, which he called spiritus nitroaereus. According to Mayow, the purpose of breathing was to acquire thi...
British chemist and physiologist and early advocate of seventeenth century corpuscular theories of matter. His theory of a "nitro-aerial spirit" as a distinct reacti...
Mayow, a member of a well-established family in Cornwall, studied at Oxford from which he received a bachelor's degree in 1665 and a doctorate in civil law in 1670. He also studied medicine, and altho...