A Legacy from Sweden Periodically the collision of events and the mind conspire to reaffirm those often poorly perceived impressions that the nature of chemistry is the result of human creative processes. As in many human endeavors, chemistry advances on the shoulders of eiants: seldom do we have the o.~.~ o r t u n i to tv ren,gni7e our collerti\,e indcht~dners.Thus, rengnition that rhii IS the hicenrmary year d t h t , birth d d i m Jncuh Hrrztliuj (20 Augtlsr 1 7 9 , ~ ~ c a s i othe n s olrsi~rvdtio~~ rhat not only was Hcr?elilld the riaht perion working at thr r ~ r h trime in the right place, his e k i t r a i n i n g turned out to heoptimal for the task that needed to he accomplished. Many of the ideas, the approaches, and the mental attitudes associated with chemistry can he traced directly to Berzelius' influence. Berzelius played a major role in the days when chemistry was developing as a science, independent of medicine and pharmacy. As teachers, we often get caught up in our subject in a way which tends to make it less than obvious that we often profoundly influence the future development of our students in areas that may not be related to their interest (or lack thereof) in chemistrv. Thus. from his stenfather Ekmark. from his boyhood friend ~ a g e r t ,and hi8 schoolmaster ~ o r n s t e d t Berzelius acauired his interest in natural historv and received earl! rr;~iningin thr Llnnilran traditim. This ;ally rxposure 10 ssitematirs u~timilrelvsurfxed in Herzelilli' n. ~.o r o a c ht u chemistry. Sometimes it is difficult to remember that students can be remarkably sensitive to environmental nuances in classrooms and laboratories. At the time Berzelius entered Upsala, the university hail great traditions inchemistry. For rxiimple, the quuntitativt: ~nidiriun01 Drrgman and Srhrelc who Itad hrrn active 30 years earlier lingered there. Gahn, the discoverer of manganese, and Gadolin, the Finnish discoverer of yttria, had been educated there. Ekberg, the discoverer of tantalum, was active a t Upsala when Berzelius was a student there. Undoubtedly, it was a t Upsala that Berzelius first learned of Scheele, whose observational skills and keen memory made him the ereatest auantitative chemist of his eeneration. Rer/elius drvthped on unbounded admiration for Scheele'.; aualitic~s.Sur only was Berzelius immersed in a tradition of quality, but he also obtained quality instruction. For example, he learned about the desien of balances and the use of the hlowpipe from Gahn. ~ e r i e l i u sstrength ' came from a combination of qualities which, from a historical ~erspective, would he teimed unique. As a systematist hk &ceived chemistry as a whole, and like Lavoisier his approach to the subject was quantitative. Berzelius was a fine technician and craftsman, and we owe many of our impressions of what is considered good laboratory technique ti him. Like Scheele, Berzelius was a keen observer and possessed an encvclooedic memorv which. with his svnontic . " . view of chemistry, permitted him to develop broad generalizations for important phenomenq. Thus, we still use words like isomeric, catalysis, protein, and polymeric, which he coined in his attempts to oreanize and describe chemical phenomena. Herzelius' passiun for systemntization led him to prepare an annlinl rcvirw of rhe scimtifir lireratllrr for each of nearl!. 20 years. This yearly task wti performed with such thor
