Edmund Davy the health of men and animals." Edmund Davy Edmund Davy FRS (1785 – 5 November 1857) was a professor of Chemistry at the Royal Cork Institution from 1813 and professor of chemistry at the Royal Dublin Society from 1826. He discovered acetylene, as it was later named by Marcellin Berthelot. He was also an original member of the Chemical Society, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Edmund Davy was a cousin of Humphry Davy, the famous chemist who invented the Davy lamp for the safety of miners. Edmund, the son of William Davy, was born in Penzance, Cornwall,
Safety lamp where helmet (cap) lamps had been the norm. Nowadays, safety lamps are mainly electric, and traditionally mounted on miners' helmets (such as the wheat lamp) or the Oldham headlamp, sealed to prevent gas penetrating the casing and being ignited by electrical sparks. Although its use as a light source was superseded by electric lighting, the flame safety lamp has continued to be used in mines to detect methane and blackdamp, although many modern mines now also use sophisticated electronic gas detectors for this purpose. As a new light source, LED has many advantages for safety lamps, including longer illumination times