Tag: chemistry
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Justus von Liebig (1803–1873)
Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States An extraordinary chemist, Justus von Liebig influenced the development of organic chemistry, scientific teaching of chemistry, and the application of chemistry to physiology and agriculture. He was one of the forerunners of the German educators who influenced the evolution to the outstanding scientific and educational standards of the late nineteenth…
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Friedrich Wöhler (1800–1882)
When the proteins of the human body are broken down to their constituent amino acids, they are converted to ammonia (NH3), which, being toxic, is metabolized in the liver to urea. As the main nitrogenous end product of proteins, urea is found mainly in the blood, but to some extent also in bile, milk, and…
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Berzelius, father of Swedish chemistry
Born in 1779 in East Gotland in the southern part of Sweden, Jons Jacob Berzelius descended from an old Swedish family in which many of his ancestors had been clergymen. His father, a schoolteacher, died when he was four years old. His mother soon remarried but died shortly thereafter in 1787, so he was raised…
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JLW Thudichum: neglected “Father of neurochemistry”
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Knowledge of diseases of the nervous system reflects an understanding of the basic sciences of neural mechanisms and organization. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the Nobel prizewinners Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal founded the neuron doctrine, and Charles Scott Sherrington explained the propagation of the…
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Airs and graces: Humphry Davy and science as performance
Alan BleakleySennen, West Cornwall, United Kingdom The setting is 1799 in Clifton, Bristol, in the southwest of England; and there is something important in the air. A “Pneumatic Institute” has been set up to investigate the potential uses of newly isolated gases such as nitrous oxide in medicine. Humphry Davy, a young, ambitious scientist from…
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The wayward Paracelsus
JMS PearceEast Yorks, England Alterius non sit qui suus esse potestLet no man be another’s who can be himself Paracelsus 1552 Paracelsus was the most original, controversial character of the Renaissance,1 who brazenly questioned and condemned the dictates of Galen and other ancient physicians. In an age of mysticism and alchemy, this solitary figure laid…
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Kathleen (Yardley) Lonsdale DSc., FR
JMS PearceHull, England Kathleen Lonsdale (1903-1971) (Fig 1) like her contemporary Dorothy Hodgkin was one of the women pioneers in a man’s world of professional scientists.1 She developed original techniques in X-ray diffraction of crystals to determine the structure of a molecule. This led to studies of the benzene ring, structure of drugs, and investigations…
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Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin OM, FRS (1910-1994)
JMS PearceHull, England Dorothy Hodgkin (Fig 1), though not by religion, had close Quaker affinities through her marriage and through her spirited pacifism. She possessed a unique mixture of scientific skills that allowed her to extend the use of X-rays to reveal the structures of compounds, a technical venture far more complex than anything attempted…
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Novalis: The white plague and the blue flower
Nicolas Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain Novalis was the pseudonym and pen name of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr1 von Hardenberg, a poet, author, mystic, and philosopher of early German Romanticism. Young Hardenberg adopted the pen name “Novalis” from his twelfth-century ancestors who named themselves “de Novali” after their settlement Grossenrode, or Magna Novalis (Latin translation for Neubruchland…