Carolus Linnaeus's Philosophia Botanica continues his work in classifying plants. In this work he claims that his system of classification is derived from God's work in which he created all living things.

Nickel is discovered.

René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur discovers the role of gastric juices, showing that digestion is chemical rather than just mechanical - he uses stomach juice from a hawk to digest meat outside the body.

William Smellie's Treatise on Midwifery is the first scientific approach to obstetrics.

In America, Benjamin Franklin performs his famous kite experiment in which he shows that lightning is a form of electricity.

The first woman to successfully obtain the degree of medical doctor graduates from the University of Halle, Germany.

An earthquake in the ocean near Lisbon, Portugal kills more than 60,000 people.

Joseph Black's experiments on magnesia, quicklime and other alkaline substances is the first quantitative chemical research.

Kaspar Wolff describes how different tissues develop in an embryo, challenging the idea that sperm contain a complete miniature creature which simply grows in the mother.

John Harrison completes "No. 4", the marine chronometer that will eventually win the longitude prize.

Joseph Black discovers latent heat by finding that when ice melts it absorbs energy but does not change temperature.

Albrecht von Haller shows that nerves stimulate muscles to contract and that all nerves lead to the spinal cord and the brain.

James Watt, Joseph Preistley and Erasmus Darwin (Charles's grandfather) are founder members of the "Lunar Society", an institution to promote the arts and sciences.

Henry Cavendish announces his discovery of 'inflammable air' (later called hydrogen).

Italian physiologist Lazzaro Spallanzani demonstrates that the theory of spontaneous generation is incorrect. He does this by showing that micro-organisms do not appear in meat broth sealed inside tightly closed jars that have been boiled for 30 minutes - years before Pasteur's famous experiment.

Meningitis in children is described for the first time.

The first bound edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is produced.

Henry Cavendish produces a mathematical theory of electricity which is based on a model of electricity as a fluid. This work and his work on electric charge remains largely unnoticed until the physicist James Clerk Maxwell publishes The Electrical Researches of Henry Cavendish in 1879. Despite being years ahead of its time, Cavendish's work has little or no influence on the work of later scientists.

Italian physiologist Luigi Galvani discovers the action of electricity on the muscles of a dissected frog.

The French scientists Antoine Lavoisier begins his experiments on combustion, burning diamond and showing that when sulphur or phosphorus burn the gain in weight is due to combination with atmospheric air.

English scientist Joseph Priestley shows that growing plants can restore air that has been made 'lifeless' by animals breathing it or fire burning in it.  

Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers oxygen - he calls it 'fire air' but he does not publish his results until 1777 - three years after Priestley publishes his discovery of oxygen in 1774. Scheele then goes on to discover chlorine, barium, molybdenum, tungsten, nitrogen and manganese, and demonstrates that lactic acid is found in sour milk.

Priestley publishes his work on oxygen.

Sir Percival Potts links soot with the scrotal and nasal cancers which chimney sweeps get - the first link between environment and cancer.

James Watt moves to Birmingham and enters a partnership with Matthew Boulton, designing and manufacturing steam engines for customers.

Lazzaro Spallanzani describes the role of semen in fertilisation, and shows that sperm have to make physical contact with the egg for fertilisation to take place.

Lavoisier shows that combustion and respiration involve combination with part of the atmosphere. At first he calls this part of the atmosphere "eminently respirable air". On Spetember 5 he proposes the name "oxigène" (from the Greek meaning "acid forming") based on his belief that all acids contain this gas.

The Rosetta stone is discovered by French troops near the town of Rosetta in Egypt. Inscribed in 196BC with a decree praising King Ptolemy V, the stone becomes the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics.

A perfectly preserved mammoth is found frozen in Siberia.

Chlorine is used to purify water by William Cruikshank.

Humphrey Davy discovers nitrogen dioxide ('laughing gas') and suggests that it might be used ad an anaesthetic.

In Italy Alessandro Volta announces the invention of the Voltaic pile, an electric battery made of a stack of alternating zinc and silver disks held apart by cloth soaked in salt solution. This is the first time that it is possible to produce electricity where and when it is wanted.