Lavoisier appears to have assumed that the composition of every chemical compound was constant, and the same opinion was the basis of much experimental inquiry at the hands of Joseph Louis Proust during 1801 to 1809, who vigorously combated the doctrine of Claude Louis Berthollet (Essai de statique chimique, 1803), viz.
Com pounds .-A chemical compound contains two or more elements; consequently it should be possible to analyse it, i.e.
Analytical Chemistry This branch of chemistry has for its province the determination of the constituents of a chemical compound or of a mixture of compounds.
The name is applied in commerce to a complex mixture of carbohydrates obtained by boiling starch with dilute mineral acids; in chemistry, it denotes, with the prefixes d, 1 and d+l (or i), the dextro-rotatory, laevo-rotatory and inactive forms of the definite chemical compound defined above.
If the alloy were a true chemical compound the counteracting electromotive force should not occur; experiments in this direction are much needed.
