Henry’s Law of Gases by Dr William Henry

In 1805, an English Chemist William Henry (1774-1836) have an important generalization called Henry’s Law on the basis of series of observation about the quantitative affect of pressure on the solubility of gases.

Henry entered Edinburgh University in 1795, received his MD in 1807 and later specialized in urinary disease. Henry worked as a physician at the Manchester Infirmary, studying bladder stones and writing an essay on diabetes. He drifted to chemistry taking over a chemical works established by his father.

Henry devoted much of his research time to chemistry, with an emphasis on the behavior of gases.  He read one of his best-papers to the Royal Society in 1802 and published it in 1803: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

The paper describes experiments on the quantity of gases absorbed by water at different temperatures and under different pressures

This led to Henry’s Law of Gases. The Henry law states that the solubility of a gas at a given temperature is directly proportional to the pressure at which it is dissolved.
Henry’s Law of Gases by Dr William Henry