One belief that wasn't mentioned is the idea of phlogiston. It's the idea that flammable material contains a substance called phlogiston and that the escaping o

One belief that wasn't mentioned is the idea of phlogiston. It's the idea that flammable material contains a substance called phlogiston and that the escaping of that substance is equivalent to burning. This believe was held for around a hundred years, from the end of the seventeenth century until the end of the eighteenth century See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory