When, in 1794, London printers released a treatise on combustion authored by a little-known woman, no one suspected it contained the foundations of two revolutionary fields. Elizabeth Fulhame, whose biography remains almost completely unknown, described the phenomenon of catalysis decades before science gave it an official name.
A Woman Against Two Camps
At the end of the 18th century, the world of chemistry was torn by a dispute between the supporters of the phlogiston theory and its opponents led by Antoine Lavoisier. Fulhame entered this battlefield with surprising confidence, rejecting the arguments of both sides.
Her only publication bore a title as lengthy as it was ambitious, announcing the overturning of both the phlogiston and anti-phlogiston hypotheses.
Meticulous descriptions of her experiments with oxidation and reduction reactions filled the pages of her work. Fulhame noticed something others overlooked: certain substances accelerate chemical transformations while remaining unchanged themselves. Today we call this catalysis, knowing that without it, neither the chemical industry nor most biological processes in our bodies could exist.
Light, Gold, and the Dawn of Photography
Fulhame’s most intriguing discovery concerned the behavior of noble metals in the presence of light. By dissolving gold in aqua regia, a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids, she observed that it returned to its metallic form only under sunlight. The experimenter also noted the appearance of a surprising palette of colors.
Half a century later, photographers coated their plates with silver nitrate, one of the compounds Fulhame studied. John Herschel, creator of blueprint copies, referenced her work during a groundbreaking lecture at the Royal Academy in 1839.
Recognition and Betrayal
Physicist Benjamin Thompson, later Count Rumford and founder of the Royal Institution, called her book inventive and lively. In 1798, the work was translated into German, and reviews appeared in the French press. Twelve years later, the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia republished it, granting Fulhame honorary membership.
Joseph Priestley, discoverer of oxygen and advocate of the phlogiston theory, initially supported Fulhame’s publication. Historians suspect he saw in her work a weapon against Lavoisier.
However, when American readers used her arguments against him as well, Priestley publicly attacked her, calling her ideas fantastic and fanciful. The very fact that such a prominent scientist took the trouble to debate an unknown researcher attests to the strength of her arguments.
After 1810, Elizabeth Fulhame vanished from historical records as mysteriously as she appeared. We do not know whether she continued her experiments or why she stopped publishing. She left behind only a single treatise and a few sentences expressing her anger toward a society that valued its learned women so little.
Rory Thornfield
Rory's grandfather left behind a wartime diary filled with accounts of a minor Burma skirmish that history books never mentioned. Reading it, Rory realized: behind every famous battle are dozens of forgotten struggles, each with its own human drama.
His preferred topics: The overlooked corners of military history – secondary campaigns, shadow battalions, local conflicts that never made headlines. From medieval sieges to twentieth-century expeditions, he focuses on the soldiers, not the generals. The people who faced impossible choices and carried those experiences forever.
Rory strips away the romanticism without losing respect for those who served. He combines tactical analysis with personal stories, examining human endurance and moral complexity rather than celebrating warfare. His writing is balanced, thoughtful, and deeply researched.
Outside work, Rory visits forgotten battlefields (now quiet farmland), photographs war memorials nobody tends anymore, and interviews veterans' families.