Chimie et mécanisme dans la nouvelle Académie royale des sciences : les débats entre Louis Lémery et Etienne-François Geoffroy

In the early eighteenth century a quarrel came out between two French chemists concerning artificial making of iron. It was in fact a conflict between a mechanist interpretation of chemical process and a more traditional approach, which was suspected of having taken his thesis from alchemy. But nevertheless, this approach will lead to affinity table which was accepted by all the chemists until the early nineteenth century.