1778 in science

• Lagrange delivers his treatise on cometary perturbations to the Académie française. ==Chemistry==

• Molybdenum discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele. • Antoine Lavoisier, considered "The father of modern chemistry", recognizes and names oxygen, and recognizes its importance and role in combustion. ==Earth sciences and exploration==

• January 18 – On his third voyage, Captain James Cook, with ships HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, becomes the first European to view the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean. • March 6 – October 24 – Captain Cook explores and maps the Pacific Northwest coast of North America from Cape Foulweather (Oregon) to the Bering Strait. • James Rennell publishes a chart and memoir of the Agulhas Current, one of the first contributions to scientific oceanography. ==Medicine==

• John Hunter publishes The Natural History of the Human Teeth. • Samuel-Auguste Tissot begins publication of Traité des nerfs et de leurs maladies, including a classical account of migraine. • Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring describes the organization of the cranial nerves. • Publication of Collection of observations on diseases and epidemic constitutions (Collection d’observations sur les maladies et constitutions épidémiques), by Louis Lépecq de La Clôture, work consisting mainly of a 15-year observation of the relations between climate, geography and pathologies in Normandy. ==Technology==

• Joseph Bramah patents an improved design of flush toilet in London. • The brothers Hans Ulrich and Johannes Grubenmann complete a bridge across the Limmat at Wettingen in Switzerland, a 60 m span which is the first known use of a true arch in a timber bridge. ==Zoology==

• Petrus Camper publishes On the Points of Similarity between the Human Species, Quadrupeds, Birds, and Fish; with Rules for Drawing, founded on this Similarity, an early work of comparative anatomy. • Johan Christian Fabricius publishes his Philosophia Entomologica in Hamburg. ==Awards==

• Copley Medal: Charles Hutton ==Births==

• February 4 – A. P. de Candolle, Swiss botanist (died 1841) • May 18 – Andrew Ure, Scottish industrial chemist and encyclopaedist (died 1857) • December 6 – Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, French chemist and physicist (died 1850) • December 17 – Humphry Davy, English chemist (died 1829) • December 25 (bapt.) – Joseph Aspdin, English inventor (died 1855) • Maria Dalle Donne, Bolognese physician (died 1842) • Anna Maria Walker, Scottish botanist (died 1852) ==Deaths==

• January 10 – Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist, first to develop standard nomenclature for naming species (born 1707) • February 20 – Laura Bassi, Italian scientist (born 1711) • March 7 – Charles De Geer, Swedish industrialist and entomologist (born 1720) • May 6 – Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet, French pharmacist and botanist (born 1720) ==References==