 Guyton de Morveau was born in Dijon, where he served as a lawyer, then "avocat général", of the Dijon "parlement".In 1773, already interested in chemistry, he proposed use of "muriatic acid gas" for fumigation of buildings and as a result is sometimes given credit for having suggested chlorine in this use.However, chlorine was not well characterized at that time, and hydrogen chloride (made by reacting sodium chloride and sulfuric acid) was actually the active gaseous fumigation agent.