The year 1774 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

Johann Elert Bode discovers the galaxy Messier 81.
Lagrange publishes a paper on the motion of the nodes of a planet's orbit.

Biology

Italian physicist Abbé Bonaventura Corti publishes Osservazioni microscopiche sulla tremella e sulla circulazione del fluido in una pianta acquajuola in Lucca, including his discovery of cyclosis in plant cells.[1]
French physician Antoine Parmentier publishes Examen chymique des pommes de terres in Paris, analysing the nutritional value of the potato.

Chemistry

Discovery of Oxygen , Chlorine , Manganese

August 1 - Joseph Priestley, working at Bowood House, Wiltshire, England, isolates oxygen in the form of a gas, which he calls "dephlogisticated air".[2]
Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers "dephlogisticated muriatic acid" (chlorine), manganese and barium.

Mathematics

P.-S. Laplace publishes Mémoire sur la probabilité des causes par les événements, including a restatement of Bayes' theorem.[3]

Medicine and physiology

William Hunter's Anatomia uteri humani gravidi tabulis illustrata | The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus exhibited in figures is published by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England.

Physics

The Schiehallion experiment is carried out to determine the mean density of the Earth.

Technology

John Wilkinson patents a method for boring cannon from the solid, subsequently utilised for accurate boring of steam engine cylinders.[4]
Jesse Ramsden produces an advanced circular dividing engine with the support of the Board of Longitude.[5][6]

Awards

Copley Medal: Not awarded

Births

April 21 - Jean-Baptiste Biot (d. 1862), physicist.
April 24 - Jean Marc Gaspard Itard (d. 1838), otorhinolaryngologist.
28 April 1774 Birth of Francis Baily in Newbury, Berkshire, England (d. 1844), astronomer.
May 7 - Francis Beaufort (d. 1856), hydrographer.
May 28 - Edward Howard (d. 1816), chemist.
August 18 - Meriwether Lewis (d. 1809), explorer.
September 26 - John Chapman (d. 1845), nurseryman.

24 November 1774 Birth of Thomas Dick in Dundee, Scotland
November - Charles Bell (d. 1842), anatomist.
December 12 - William Henry (d. 1836), chemist.

Deaths

February 4 - Charles Marie de La Condamine, French geographer (b. 1701)
July 9 - Anna Morandi Manzolini, Italian anatomist (b. 1714)

References

^ Hughes, Arthur (1959). A History of Cytology. London: Abelard-Schuman. p. 41.
^ Priestley, Joseph (1775). "An Account of Further Discoveries in Air". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London) 65: 384–94. JSTOR 106209.
^ McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch (2011). The Theory That Would Not Die. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-16969-0.
^ Harris, J. R. (2004). "Wilkinson, John (1728–1808)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2011-01-14. subscription or UK public library membership required
^ Boorstin, Daniel J. (1983). The Discoverers: a history of man's search to know his world and himself. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-40229-4.
^ Daumas, Maurice (1953). Les Instruments scientifiques aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.