Humphry Davy (1778-1829),

Thesis Statement

Humphery Davy was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he belonged from a poor family but rose to the highest levels of popularity with his invention and contionous hard work.

Background

Humphry Davy the son of an impoverished Cornish woodcarver, rose meteorically to become a leader in the reformed chemistry movement initiated by Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier—albeit a critic of some of its basic premises—and a pioneer in the new field of electrochemistry. Apprenticed to an apothecary-surgeon, Davy taught himself a wide range of other topics: theology and beliefs, poetics, seven languages, and some sciences, including chemistry. Humphry Davy was a brilliant young man with an inquiring mind and thanks to the patronage of the town's apothecary Dr John Tonkin he benefited from a academic education. In his teens a localized ironmonger named Robert Dunkin befriended Davy and presented him to mathematics, electricity and magnetism, and technical experiment. In 1795 Davy was apprenticed to John Borlase an apothecary and surgeon. As well as his interest in research and his medical studies, Davy relished angling and composing poetry.

In 1798 he took a position at Thomas Beddoes's Pneumatic organisation, where the use of the freshly found out gases in the therapy and avoidance of infection was investigated. He was in the custom of making the little journey on the back of a pony or on foot, and, as shortly as he was adept to handle a fishing-rod, he indulged in piscatory recreations, in connexion with which he released his "Salmonia," a treatise on angling, a year before his death. At other times he roamed over the adjacent to district, seeking for games with his cannon, and. no doubt, furthermore meditating on topics connected with those great discoveries for which the world is indebted to him. The locality was especially well calculated to give his mind the scientific main heading which it took at so early an age. "How often," said he to a ally, in after years, as he looked on a picture of one of the mines in his native locality, "How often when a boy have I wandered about these rocks in seek after new minerals; and, when exhausted, sat down upon these crags, and exercised my adorned in anticipation of future renown." neither was it long in coming. He cultivated a little flower bed of his own with great care, and took great pleasure in assembling and decorating birds and fishes. (Darley Jones Pp. 56)

Thus passed the time till his sixteenth year, when he had the misfortune to misplace his dad; but his other parent survived to observer, with proud satisfaction, his day of youthful greatness. In the course of next year he became the apprentice of a Penzance apothecary, and while in his paid work underwent an exceptional allowance of study on subjects attached with the health profession, besides mathematics, dialects, annals, and science. He spent much time experimenting in the garret of his master's dwelling, which, with no small hazard to the lives of the inhabitants, ...