These new chemical discoveries — not least the new method of “seeing” chemical work — encouraged greater convergence and collaboration between chemistry, medicine, and pharmacology. As a result, Chaptal, Berthollet, and Fourcroy — physicians before converting to chemistry — became captivated by the new work’s potential industrial applications and developed a number of acid- and chlorine-based substances in the interest of marrying manufacturing activity and public health

As disinfection became entrenched as a public health practice, chemists emerged as the unquestioned experts in evaluating sanitary hazards. “Controlling pollutions through disinfection, rather than preventing them outright, marked a critical feature of the chemical revolution that crested in the 1770s."

>"Controlling pollutions through disinfection, rather than preventing them outright, marked a critical feature of the chemical revolution that crested in the 1770s."

>"Controlling pollutions through disinfection, rather than preventing them outright, marked a critical feature of the chemical revolution that crested in the 1770s."