MAYOW, JOHN

born May 24, 1640, London, Eng. died October 1679, London English chemist and physiologist who, about a hundred years before Joseph Priestley and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, identified spiritus nitroaereus (oxygen) as a distinct atmospheric entity. Though a doctor of law from the University of Oxford (1670), Mayow made medicine his profession. His writings include a remarkably correct anatomical description of respiration and a recognition of the role of oxygen in the combustion of metals.