Discovery of calcium

Calcium compounds are among the oldest known to humankind. Lime, made by heating limestone, was used by the Romans and by earlier peoples for mortar and plaster, and its name derives from the Latin calx. The element itself was first isolated in 1808 by the English chemist Humphry Davy, who passed an electric current through a mixture of lime and mercuric oxide. The Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius and his colleague Magnus Pontin carried out similar experiments at about the same time. Calcium is the fifth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and a vital component of living organisms, forming bones, teeth and shells. It is also found in chalk, marble and gypsum, and is a key ingredient of cement.

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