section_path: Acid–base definitions/Historic development/Lavoisier's oxygen theory of acids
section_name: Lavoisier's oxygen theory of acids
paragraph_text: Lavoisier's oxygen theory of acids
  
  The first scientific concept of acids and bases was provided by Lavoisier in around 1776. Since Lavoisier's knowledge of strong acids was mainly restricted to oxoacids, such as HNO (nitric acid) and H SO (sulfuric acid), which tend to contain central atoms in high oxidation states surrounded by oxygen, and since he was not aware of the true composition of the hydrohalic acids (HF, HCl, HBr, and HI), he defined acids in terms of their containing oxygen, which in fact he named from Greek words meaning "acid-former" (from Greek ὀξύς (oxys) 'acid, sharp' and γεινομαι (geinomai) 'engender'). The Lavoisier definition held for over 30 years, until the 1810 article and subsequent lectures by Sir Humphry Davy in which he proved the lack of oxygen in hydrogen sulfide (H S), hydrogen telluride (H Te), and the hydrohalic acids. However, Davy failed to develop a new theory, concluding that "acidity does not depend upon any particular elementary substance, but upon peculiar arrangement of various substances". One notable modification of oxygen theory was provided by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, who stated that acids are oxides of nonmetals while bases are oxides of metals.