Ingen-Housz, John, FRS
An Essay on the Food of Plants and the Renovation of Soils. [Printed by W. Bulmer and Co., 1796 (vide infra)]. 4to, calf-backed marbled boards; pp. [2 (new title, verso blank)], 20; provenance: ink inscription states this was the gift of the author to Richard Acklom, 1796. Extracted from the Additional Appendix to the Outlines of the Fifteenth Chapter of the Proposed General Report From the Board of Agriculture on the Subject of Manures.
This almost wilfully prosaic title to an otherwise obscure British governmental publication conceals one of the great "misplaced chapters" in the history of science. Jan Ingen-Housz was a brilliant 18th-century chemist, biologist and physiologist. He was a pioneer of inoculation; discovered the paramagnetism of platinum; achieved significant advances in the fields of microscopy, electrostatic generator design and match design; discovered Brownian Motion in lifeless particles; and invented an electrically-ignited lighter. His most enduring contribution to science though was in the discovery of the mechanism of photosynthesis (in opposition to the claims of Priestly and Senebier). In a true spirit of innovation, this interest in the nature of pure air led him to suggest medical treatments which would become oxygen therapy.

This work appears extracted from the larger report (with a new title page, though strangely without the "No. III" heading of the original essay, suggesting it was separately printed for the author). Ingen-Housz had met Sir John Sinclair, President of the Board of Agriculture, who encouraged his studies. The origin of carbon in plants was not yet fully understood, the then-current theory being that it was taken from the soil by the roots. Ingen-Housz showed carbon dioxide in the air was responsible, explaining Priestly's observations of plants 'cleaning' air. Howard Gest of Indiana University writes that this 1796 essay "is testimony to his remarkable insights", especially in an era "befogged by the mythical phlogiston" (Gest, "A 'misplaced chapter' in the history of photosynthesis researchï¾Ã‚…" in Photosynthesis Research 53, 1997, pp. 65-72). There are two other editions of this work, the first a German translation, is dismissed by Ingen-Housz biographer Dr Julius Wiesner as "considerably flawed", whilst Dr Bay's private reprint of 1933 omits all Ingen-Housz's marginal notes. Whilst there are some few copies of the work in institution libraries, we have only been able to trace one at auction (Christie's, June 16, 1998). This is, as Gest relates, an extremely rare (and previously virtually unknown) essay - an authorial gift copy at that - whose importance to understanding of plant biology cannot be overstated.