In an earlier post I contrasted the lives of Priestley and Lavoisier and talked about how Priestley was ruined as a scientist by his obstinate determination to cling to the phlogiston theory which Lavoisier destroyed. (I can explain phlogiston theory if anyone really wants to know.)

But what I was wondering was this: did phlogiston theory continue in the public mind after the scientists had got rid of it? I ask, because my mother (in her eighties) remembers a cold medicine in her youth that was described as "anti-phlogistic". This would be a good 130 years after the rejection of phlogiston theory among all but the most die-hard scientists.

Has anyone come across references to phlogiston in their reading of 19th century material?