Kerosene

In the Islamic golden age Al-Razi discovered smallpox and kerosene but the knowledge of kerosene was lost since the mongols raided the capital Baghdad and thereby ended the Islamic golden age. Making fires to light up areas was not a new idea but there weren’t a lot of ways to make a safer, smaller, and bright fire. There was coal oil which is made of coal and tar which did the job but it let off a lot of gas and smoke and therefore was not a popular type of oil for indoor lighting unless you wanted a bright and smoke filled room. Then there was whale oil and that worked good and was popular except for the fact that it was made of whale fat which is very stinky and gets stinkier as you burn it but did create the whaling industry and carving out of whalebone. So people were on the lookout for a smokeless and stinkless and preferably good smelling fuel for their lamps. This fuel was found by a Canadian named Abraham Gesner. Abraham studied medicine but got interested in geology while in England. He became chief geologist of Nova Scotia, Canada and therefor had access to Cole, petroleum, and oil shale which can make kerosene. Gesner made a company that sold his patented kerosene and he trademarked the name kerosene but people called other things of the same type kerosene to. To get around Gesner’s patent people made kerosene out of different amounts of diluted petroleum.