Chemists as Autobiographers: the 19th Century Margaret Millar and Ian T. Mlllar The University, Keele, Staffordshire, England E. G. Walaschewski Cologne, W. Germany The difficulty of autobiographical writing has not deterred chemists from leaving us the story of their lives (1). Over 50 such men and a woman have left us an insight into the thouehts behind their deeds. extendine over a period of 1000 In attempting to unfdld the experienceof their lives, some autobiographers reveal an explosion of feeling in a work that had to he written in self-justification; others provide a modest record for posterity. The 19th century produced many such records; it was a period in which feelings were generally not paraded in public. The autobiographies vary in other ways: time span, author's age at the time of writing, purpose, and degree of validitv as autobiographies. The mans reasons why some fail in this last respect-include the use of a ghost writer. In autohiography it is the self that is the subject rather than the actions of a life. A biographer has an easier task in that the deeds speak for themselves and the resources he has to draw upon are numerous. The autohiographer has only his own viewpoint and assessment of life, which will he continually changing as life progresses, shifting its emphasis, altering the significance of past events, the importance of chance and misfortune, and the influence of his personality. The autohiomaoher must rieorouslv select from his life. and oerhaps rhcrhiii&nper iv to make 1h6 linr linking past and prr;cnt far too rxarrly continuouc and logical. \Ye nut oniv trnd cunsriously to rntionalisr our ilvcs, but memury. 3s >!311r016 polnts out, operates unconsciously to the same end. Gusdorf in his searching essay on autobiography, calls this tendency the "original sin" of autobiopraphers. The consciousness of the outcome of an experience imposed itself on the experience and distorts it; the completed fact is substituted for the "fact-in-the-making"(2). Other pitfalls await the autobiographer. The use of diaries and letters may spotlight certain moments of a life hut these must also be perceivedas part of the whole experience. Reminiscence and memoir, while part of autohiographical material. tend to lead awav from the author to illuminate others. perhaps the greatest"asset an autohiographer can have is honesty. Autobiography means therefore discrimination and selection in face of the endless complexity of life, selection of facts, distribution of em~hasis, choice of exoression. Evervthine depends on the standpoint chosen; and it i6 clear that the more arbitrary the standpoint, the greater is the likelihood that the autohiography will be one-sided, hlinkered, or downright false. This is the reason, I believe, why the best autobiographies are by men and women of outstanding achievement in life (2). Early in the last century, chemistry was ripe for the kind of rapid develo~mentwhich. a centurv before. had transformkd physics.~Lavoisier'swork had (aid the groundwork; Dalton's atomic theory and Daw's restless talent 13).applied to problems in halogen chemistry and electroche&stry, moved the subject quickly forward, and the textbooks that all three wrote ensured that their ideas were influential in continuing the "Chemical Revolution." This revolution was eventually fully consolidated hy recognition of the value of Avogadro's hypothesis (which rested on Gay-Lussac's work on the combining volumes of gases) and the resulting general agreement on atomic and molecular weights from 1860 onward.
Jons Jacob Berzellus Within this first half of the 19th century, much was achieved by painstaking quantitative experimentation and analysis, by men such as Proust, Vauquelin, Klaproth, and Wollaston, and, especially, Berzelius, whose position as the supreme authority in chemistry was hardly challenged from 1815 to 1835. In the autobiography (4) of Jons Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848) we have the first full-length autobiography by a chemist of the first rank, whose chemical ideas developed from an acceptance of Lavoisier's views on the nature and role of oxygen, and his empirical acceptance of an element as a substance a t the limit of analysis, together with acceptance of Dalton's atomic theory. We owe Berzelius'autohiography to the Swedish Academy of Science's requirement that a memher should provide such an account, ðer with decennial supplements. Not all meml~ersmct the runditiun, but as Secretary for 25 wars Rerzelius DerhaDs felt the need to set an example. He ndtes in a foreword thai his account is fuller than is reauired hut deems i t an o.~.~ o r t u n ito t vcorrect errors in "the numerous hiugrnphicd sketches concerning me." He even provided in 1842 the reauired uudatine after 10 vesrs. despite his failure to persuade any other academician to ;OUO& the rule. In Berzelius' autohiography the reader gains little feeling of closeness to the writer, despite a detailed account of most of his life span. He provides an ample record hut little more. Orphaned early, interested in natural histow, and with small means, training in rnrdirine was his chosen career from his schooldays. Before find graduation in 1801 he read and experimented much in chemistry, under the guidance of J. Afzelius, and his interest focused in chemistry rather than medicine. His many difficulties (partly due to poverty, but also due to misappreciation of his abilities or to misunderstandings between his superiors, according to Berzelius) were also in part reflections of his country's problems in the wars against France (1805-9 and 1812-14), which ultimately gave him financial freedom as a result of the need for military surgeons and thence a massive increase in Dav for the medical facultv in Stuckholm, where Berzelius heid ;hrrhairof ~ e d i c i n e a n d Pharmacs from 1807. In the reureanization of the medical school as'the Karolinska ~ n s t i t u t ein t 1809, his chair was renamed as that of "Chemistry and Pharmacy." In 1810, his attempt to recover the metal (about 1g) from gold fulminate (made in an unsuccessful attempt to deduce from it the nature of ammonia) caused an explosi& that might have killed him and in fact injured his left hand and riaht eve severelv. He records his tr&els in some drtail. His first tripoutside ;randina\ia was tu England, tovisit Daw, in I812 (he had planned to visit France first, hut the new outbreak of war prkvented this). He spent some days with Davy, admiring him greatly as a scientist, and less so as a man. The two might have become fast friends but for a curious affair, described in detail, in which Thomas Young secured, by subterfuge, Berzelius' notes of errors in Davy's new hook "Elements of Chemical Philosophy" and contrived an estrangement. The business provides more insight into Davy's personality, and Young's, than that of the writer. In this and later travels Berzelius met virtually all the people active in physical science in this post-Lavoisier period of high chemical activity, and he gives fairly full opinions of many of them in his autobiography. Volume 62 Number 4
April 1985
275
Berzelius was less fortunate as a commercial chemist: several factory-based ventures (into vinegar, sulfuric acid, and related nroduction) failed before he had success with a medical mineral water and an associated health farm. Supervision of the acid nlant led. at lenst. to the discoverv of Se in 1817. (He had discbvered Ck in 1803 and was to discover T h in 1829). Berzelius and his students took the Swedish interest in mineral chemistry to its zenith. A later tour took him to Marienbad and a slightly odd encounter with the greatest of German writers, Goethe. The latter's many enthusiasms included mineraloev and vulcanology, and while he accepted Berzelius' authority (and expertise in blowpipe analysis) in the former, he initially pressed his own view of the geological history of the nearby Kammerbiihl region, which includes an extinct volcano. Goethe believed that the eruption had occurred under water and also that the summit pit was"'an excavation dug for picnic parties to boil water for tea." Berzelius was able t o convince him that i t was the volcanic crater: the two became eood friends and Goethe's collection of minerals was mucgimproved (by additions and re-identifications) as a result. Late in life, Berzelius married (he was 56, she was 24 and the daughter of a cabinet minister and old friend) and the kine made B&elius a baron as a wedding gift. ~ e r z e l i u gives s h; arguments for marriage but hardly notes his happiness and good fortune in the matter. Berzelius was a good and prolific writer-his mans letters, textbooks, annual reports and translations all pay tiibute to this; but his autobiography reveals little of his paths of thought. These gave us the first majur systematization of 19th century chemistry, including the first accurate table of acomir weights (for 2RelemenL5 in his list of 1828):the re-introduction and use of modern-initial 1etter"symbols for elements; concepts including isomerism and catalysis, and the division of thr subject into inorganic and organic branches; and, importantly, his theow of dualism. based on his work in electrochemistry. This theory proved both a spur and an inhibitor to further development, but can now be seen as a precursor to the later division of elements into electropositive and -negative classes. His students, es~eciallvfrom Germanv. .. were to hecome dominant figures in chkmistiy during and after his own lifetime. His autobio.graphy lists 21 foreign co-workers and 24 from Sweden,
Figure 1. Justus won Liebig 276
Journal of Chemical Education
Wtihler and Lleblg Perhaps the best known of Berzelius' co-workers is Friedrich ~ o h l e (1800-1882) r who was student, friend, correspondent, and translator into German of his textbook and "Jahreshrrichte." Wohlrr has left only a partial autobiography ( 5 1 hut it gives the flavor oithe neriod and some Ieadine-. nersonalitiesas effectively as many longer accounts. The friendship between Wohler and Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) (Fig. 1)is also well known. Again, only an autobiographical sketch by Liebig exists ( 6 ) , a hand-written fragment found in 1891 and probably written when Liebig was 60. I t is well worth reading and reveals his poor opinion of his early scientific education in Germany, his own inabilities, his excellent visual memory and ability "to think in terms of phenomena," and the kindness and ins~irationhe eained in . areother acParis through working with ~ a y - ~ u s s a ;There counts, as well as Liehig's own, of what life was like in the famous lab in Giessen in which Liebig shaped organic teaching and research in the form it was to take thereafter. One such account is in the rare unfinished autohiography (7) by Carl Vogt (1817-1895). (The relevant section is fortunatelv available in THISJOURNAL (81.) Vogt was not averse to improving on a good story. Henry Bessemer The autobiography of Sir Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) (Fig. 2) ( 9 ) was written after pressure from friends, with the purpose of
.. .giving the world an authentic account of the origin and progress of the several inventions which together constitute . . . the "Bessemer Steel Process"; thus tracing back to their earliest inception the various ideas and incidents which have led . . . to the development and practical working of that great steel industry. He was concerned that original ideas, which led t o the major industries then rapidly developing, were not traceable, and so was persuaded of the desirability of recording the thoughts and observations that led to his own inventions. Bessemer was an engineer and metallurgist, hut his contributions to applied chemistry-continuous sheet zlass, and cheap steel from nie . - " iron-give him a place here.
Figure 2. Sir H. Besserner at ages 35. 45. 56. 70, and 80 (center), from the frontispieceof ref. (4.
He was not concerned that his name would he forgotten, for by the time he was persuaded to write his autobiography he had achieved widespread fame and wealth, and t o his great pride had six towns named after him in the U.S. Bessemer's friends tried to obtain his agreement to allow a hiocranhv to be written by Samuel ~ m i l &(author of "Lives of i h e h ~ n g i neers" and "Self-Heln") hut Bessemer decided that ". . . I could not help feeling that my daily pursuits were of too technical a character to supply the necessary materials to form an interesting book.. . ." I t is easv to see whv Bessemer's friends and the editors of ~ngineeringwere so persistent, for he writes with an engaging enthusiasm and an abilitv to explain processes vividly, and problems with simplicitymd clarity. The autobiography was not fully completed, due perhaps t o self-confessed aversion to the task and distraction by the "more congenial work of construction going on every day in my workshop." However he continued working on the hook to within a year of his death at 84. I t covers his childhood and active workine~, life. ~.and contains manv of his own drawings which illustrate not only some of his l i 7 patents hut also Gs skill as a drauchtsman and desirner. The hook concludes with a chapter by his eldest son on kessemer's life in retirement, and on the development of Bessemer steel-making in the U.S. This autohiomanhv - . .is the work of an elderlv man rememhering his ambitions, struggles, triumphs, and occasional bitterness in a long life in applied science. I t must, t o some extent, suffer fromihe faultsbf hindsight, hut more than most he had rerourit: to detail in the records of his notebooks and patents. Recounted conversations make strange company with facsimile letters and the Times verbatim report on his paper to the British Association entitled "The Manufacture of Malleable Iron and Steel without Fuel" presented a t Cheltenham in 1856. However, in his vivid account of events, his actions and surprises, his personality and motivation emerge along" with a auiet sense of humor. Bessemer's interests ranged widely; an early success was in making metal castings of intricate and delicate objects. The earliest commercial electroplating (of copper on white metal) followed. His first major success came with his manufacture of bronze powder, until then a secret process made by hand lahor chiefly in Nuremherg. Finding the Patent laws inadequate to protect his process, he built a small factory in the garden of his house, ". . . in the quiet suburb of St. Pancras," ~~~
~
~
to manufacture the bronze powder, employing only relatives and keeping the method a secret for 35 years. From this success he financed further exneriments. havine he savs an ". . . impulsive nature and intense desire folk& up every new problem that presented itself. . .".He won the Gold Medal of the Society of Arts for improvements to the manufacture of sugar; and sold for f6000 to Lucas Chance, "head of the largest glass works in the kingdom," his method of continuouslv drawine a sheet from a tank of fused -glass,. following . a demonstrati& I t was the Crimean War that concentrated his thouehts on ordnance and metal suitable for itsconstruction. At that rime he had very little knowledge of ferrous metallurrv. which he helieved ":. . was in one sense an advantage to for I had nothing t o unlearn . . ." A chance observation when exnerimenting with the open-hearth furnace led to his method of making steel, cutting to minutes (by blowing air through molten metal in his converter (Fig. 3), oxidizing carbon t o blow-off gas and silicon and manganese to solid oxides) a process that formerly had taken days, and using crude pig iron instead of Swedish bar iron. Persuading his countrymen, particularly those in the War Office and the Admiralty, of the benefits of his invention took much longer. Iron containing nhosnhorus was not satisfactorilv converted to steel until a basiclining was used 20 years later. Of all the manufactured materials that have shaned the industrial aee. cheao steel dominates; it first hecame available by the ~ e & n e process. r After commandine steel-makina for manv vears. and oroviding industry's most dramat; display,-this p;ocesswas largely displaced by the basic open-hearth route (which eave better quality control), whi& in turn gave ground t;the oxygen-lance method. Pascal (2) tells us "The hest autobiographers seem to suggest a certain power of the personality over circumstance!' Here is such an autobiography, and one worthy of wider accessibility. Edward Frankland At the age of 71, havinggiven up his favorite occupation of
fishing, Sir Edward Frankland (1825-1899) began his autobiography (10).I t seems to have been a holiday occupation and contains much detailed material from his journals, diaries, and laboratorv notebooks. I t covers the neriod from his childhood to h:ls late 30's. Letters written tdhis family while traveling were added by his daughters, who completed the book and arranged for its private circulation. Originals are elusive, and it has never been reprinted. As an autobiography rhe work is frustrating. We are told a meat deal ahour his chemical work and his travels but rather little about the writer's mind. I t was dictated to a female secretary, which may he the reason whv his description of scenery is better than his account of people. An eas; nature emerges but no clearpersonality. He hints a t problems in his relationship with his stepfather, and from the distance of old age wryly reveals four years of intense religious fervor in his earlv 20's. HW intention to enter the medical profession was prompted hv an admired schoolmaster. but his attemnt to do so hv anGenticeship to a druggist was the result of bad advice by the familv doctor. His account of the six wasted vears soent as a druggist's apprentice is one of the more vividparts of his autobiography. His interest in science arose through books from the Mechanic's Institute, particularly Priestley's "History of Electricity." Happier guidance from a local medical man led to Frankland's entering the government laboratory of Dr. Lyon Plavfair, and so began his real chemical education. - ~ later e worked with ~ o l h and e Bunsen a t Marhurg and briefly with Liebig a t Giessen. Describing their differing lecturing styles, he writes of Bunsen (Fig. 4),
".
Figwe 3. BesJemer's own drawing of the original moveable converter and ladle. at B, during the run-in of the m d e iron. C shows It durino the blow. and D when the steel is poured lnto the casmg ladle (E. Fl, u h c h has a cennai aischargs valve to till me molds G snaas the bonarn 01 tne convener, and h the detail at me Were6 (air-inlets). (From ref. (9)).
lhe main body of W e mnverter A is 8-9 f8 high; il is shown in &ion
His lectures were somewhat of the conversational type, and during their delivery he generally walked backwards and forVolume 62
Number 4 April 1985
277
paqrom raKaeg uon araH 'Kaoleroqq w~n!rdE q q pq.~anuoa pue l u a m p d a ue paluar peq p q a x 'yrom a!ue%o 103f i q e r -oqe( s!q u! aaeds ou anus uasuna s v 'Braq[ap!a~ l e q q a x rapun qrom 02 luapnls qamasar isr!~aql ameaaq aq os 'dn ua@ peq uasuug qa!qm 'ap!s a!wBro aq? uo pasnaoj lsarqrq
u! qrom pooa auop peq aq 'uaql L a . u o p u o ~q panom p i e l u a m q m d j o raqmam e a m a q aq uaqm 'ggg~~ l u ~n 9 8 morj 1 plaq aq qaqm 'ialsaqnely u! rossaaans s,puepluera se sem i!eqa pr!j s ! 'maql ~ lnoqe [lam s a q u pue sls!maqa au!pea[ aql JO Luem mauq aoaso)l(z(3 pue ZH JO uo!leu!qmoa aql uo leql Bu!pn[au! 'Ka$s!maqaoloqd uo qrom am3 p!p Aaql araqm) Braqlap!a~ yrom srq - - l e uasunH - qpm . . . q uoqrppe .... UT- .ralrrm . aq7jo aarm saso[as!p pue yooq rcqlaq aql s! 'EL sem aq uaqm
'(11) l u a q 3 a! 9981 u! s!sauaa ml!uqs e peq ra?e( am? -anqs %!I auazuaq aql l s q l pus snq u o p u o ~e uo marpKEp
- 3 n w aq? 7 ~ q 7(9681-6~81) ~ n + xisnanv q i ! ~s! I! ( a q ~ o n pue 'uosm~r 'lpmqra3 ' l u a m q 'setma Lppadsa 'sraqlo p!p osle se) punorX awns p a l ~ d a l dpuelyuerd j! .ranamoH 'qqeaq q q n d POOX 1oj s)uamar!nbai lunotuemd-uo!lea!j!~nd ammas pun lalvm jo s~am aql u! Llqwou '~ir,s!uraqnpa!qdde ol suo!)nq!~iuoa mfnm apetu osle uiapour ,101 s u o.~ l.e p u n" o ~ . aH . .'Lris~maq> . . lnlnlanlls . " aaedard ol qanm p!p map! asaql qBn&ql pue (,,uo!lqou s.pueTyuer,q,.) aeTnmroj arqdera urapom pue ..puoq.. prom aql pasn afaaua@njo ;Croaiql pqsseia aql:ramob a ~ i u ! ~ m o a a!mo?e ut suo!lqtm!T ~eraalu! 'papamnu JO 'spunodmoa . ..
.
a i l s e aq ~ -03 !peq[v p a p n a i l LT siaq;&-qllm p i a ~ saq~~ o i lleidmw aqlm81 U! uaqM xwnpu1 p+mqj jo i(la!JoS aql ~ pue.>% ? ? . I911 . t l c r l ' h .I ('Hv\1 El,! r . 16.551 , 1961, I9M! I3c.ck.U 11 lf~,, ~ C L 19,2QC"
"The Life and Experience of Sir H.E. Roscoe. Written b y Himself," Mamillsn, London, 1906. (The B illutrstions indudeone b y hisniece. Beater Potter,perheps the best known of aU illustrators of children's h m k d Rawer. A. "on, "Erinnerunge" aus meinemLeben," thelntmductioo t o his"Ge-melte Werke," 2 vols, Braunschweig, 1905. Pcrkin. W. H., in "Memorial Lectures Delivered before UleChemiesl Saeiety, 1893Ism," Gurney & Jackson, Landon, 1901, p. 596 et aeq, andJ. Chsm. Sm.,69,596 (1896). See also Robinson, R., J. C H e M EDUC..34.54 (19571. Wiley, H. W., "A" Autobiography," Bobbs. Merrill, Indianapolis. 1930. Motqeger and Wbittig. Leipzig, 1918. Meyer. E. "on. "Lehennerinncrunge": Meyer. E, van. '"A History of Chemistry," (Tmnslofor: McGowsn, G.). Maemillan. London, 1891 (and 4latereditionn):aeeelsoOesper,R. E., J. CHEM.EDUC.,21. 107 (1944). Fiacher, E.,"Auameinem Iaben," Springer, Berlin, 1922. J.CHenr.EouC..9.1908119321. Kilisni. H... Ib. . 18551. dvn,anautobioersohiealavticlein " .. . writ& for the translator. R. E. Oesper. (28) Ostwdd, W., "Iabenalinien, eine Sslhotbiogrsphie," 3 ~018..Klasaing, Berlin, 1933. See also his daughter Crete's "Wilhelm Ostwdd mein 1953; aod valuable articles i n J. CHEM EDUC., 10,589,609 (1933): 25.2 (1948): 30.6W. EQ4, 606 (1953): 34.328 (19571. (24) Thamsan, J. J., '"Reeolleetians and Reflections," Ball, London, 1936. (25) Pascd, R., "Design and T r v t h i n Autobiography," Routledge, London, 1960. p. 114 at req.
".
..
Vater,"Stuttgan,
Volume 62
Number 4
April 1985
281
