H. S. VAN XLWSTER Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
INAN article puhlished in THIS JOURNAL in 1932 ( I ) , Browne gave some brief biographical sketches of eight of Wohler's most outstanding American pupils. One of them was H. B. Nasou, for 30 years teacher a t Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The fact that Wohler's earliest American pupil, James C. Booth of Phiiadelphia (1810-88), who came to him in Cassel in 1833, was a student of Amos Eatou, the founder and first professor of the Institute, led to a search for other American students of chemistry who went t o Gottingen during Wohler's professorship (1836-80) a t that famous center of chemical research. The results of this study were puhlished in 1944 (8). Dr. Browne also mentions seven outstanding American pupils of Liebig and notes that they "are only a few of the leading American teachers of chemistry who were schooled under Liehig. The list could be greatly extended." I n view of the fact that one of the seven men mentioned was Eben N. Horsford, a pupil of Amos Eaton, the writer recently made a search for other noted pupils of Liehig in this country. Although the results were disappointing, some interesting data concerning Horsford have recently become available which induced the writer to present the results of his exploration into this corner of the past history of American chemists. To this end the first edition of "American Men of Science," published in 1906, was carefully examined. Only three more names turned up in addition t o those mentioned in Browne's article. A search through Liehig's Annalen from 1834 t o 1873, the year Liebig died, was also made. Only one new name was found, that of Ogden R. Rood of New Haven. The question may be raised why there are so few American pupils of Liehig compared with the very large number of Wohler's pupils in this country. The obvious explanation is as follows. Liebig started his laboratory in 1824 and left Giessen in 1852 t o go t o Munich. He was then a t the height of his career, 50 years old, hut exhausted and tired of his daily contact with students. Before coming to Munich he had stipulated that he was t o he relieved entirely from lahoratory work, and would confine himself exclusively to lecturing. He was free, however, to continue his own research in a small private laboratory, with post-doctorate assistants. More and more, and particularly after 1860, he worked a t his desk, revising his texts and his "chemical letters" and replying to his many opponents in various countries.
JOHN LAWRENCE SMITH
John Lawrence Smith (1818-83), Liebig's first pupil from this side of the Atlantic, was a Southerner. He entered the University of Virginia in 1835, studying chemistry and civil engineering for two years. I n 1838 he enrolled in the Medical College of his home state of South Carolina and became an M.D. in 1840. He then went abroad for further study, first in Paris, with Orfila, Dumas, and Elie de Beaumont, and then in Giessen. Here he decided to make chemistry his life's work. He undertook a t Liehig's suggestion the study of spermaceti. The results were published in the Annalen (42, 241 (1842)) under the heading "On the composition of spermaceti and its oxidation by nitric acid." He returned to Charleston in 1843. Some research that he had done on certain soils of his native state led to his selection by James Buchanan, then Secretary of State and later President (1857-61), t o go to Turkey to advise the government of that country on the feasibility of cotton culture there. On his arrival in 1847 he was diverted t o study the mineral resources of the Turkish Empire. A brief communication on two new minerals, one of which he named Liebigit, was puhlished in the Annalen (66, 253 (1848)). Smith came back to America in 1850, became professor of chemistry a t the University of Virginia in 1852 and in 1854 professor of medical chemistry and toxicology a t the University of Louisville, which chair he held until 1866. He was a prolific writer; a total of 145 papers is listed in his bibliography. He was highly regarded professionally, being president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1874, and president of the American Chemical Society in 1877. A more detailed account of his l i e and work may be found in E. F. Smith's article on mineral chemistry (3) and in an illustrated article by Sampey (4). EBEN NORTON HORSFORD
Liehig's second pupil from America was Eben Norton Horsford (1818-93), who started out in life as a civil engineer, became a chemist later on, then professor, inventor, and manufacturer, and finally, on retiring from business, a hobbyist and philanthropist. He was horn in Moskow, Livingston County, New York, on July 27, 1818, and attended Temple Hill High School in Genesee, New York. He entered the Rensselaer Institute in September, 1837, finished a two-year course within one year, and graduated with the class of 1838 as a civil
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engineer. After graduation, Horsford went for six weeks to the Adirondack iron mines to survey the mines and t o fix sites for dams. On reporting his findings in Albany he was engaged by Hall for a survey of New York State on the division west of Albany, which kept him occupied for two years. At the same time he assisted Dr. Simmons with his chemical lectures a t the
tural science" %.as in Liebig's private laboratory and the reception seemed "rather that of a military officer than of a scientific man." Horsford, while being conducted through the various rooms of the laboratory, felt that working and thinking were the characteristic attributes of the place. Even conversation was carried on in an undertone as if it were contraband. The visitor was told, "You may converse in English two or three days, but not more." This was said without a smile and impressed upon the listener the necessity of study. The first lecture that Horsford attended was in a room with about a hundred students (including a number of the medical class) and dealt with oreanic chemistry. When the lecture was about to be&, the murmur of conversation subsided to a whisper, the whole audience rose and Liebig, acknowledging the greeting, entered. Horsford describes the lecture as follows: What it was about, I was able to see from the formula on the blackboard and from a word now and then which I understood, but I was too much absorbed with the manner, to give much attention to what he said. He is perhaps two or three inches less than six feet, and stands quite erect, though a little rounding of the shouldera from much writing, labor, and study, might be seen if made the special object of search. His figure is slender rather than stout, which makes him appear taller than he really is. All his movements, and particularly those connected with demonstration, experiment, or illustration, are graceful to a degree which I have not seen equaled in any lecturer. To see him hold in the same hand three glass test tubes and an equal number of stoppers, while with the other he pours from vessels containing reagents, There is an expression of at first s. little excited my surprize. thought in all his attitudes and movements, which I could have scarcely believed upon the mere relation, and which the crayon cannot oornmit to paper; whether with the chalk and sponge, or with the index finger dong the chin and nose, presenting that most singular of all German attitudes, or in gestic:~lation,or with apparatus, it is all the same. He is all mind-and it beams as distinctly through its corporeal tenement, as his chemical eompounds are seen through the vessels that contain them. His detail of chemical decompositions and reoompositions is clear and expressed without any circumlocution in terms, comprehended by everyone. Occasiondly these details bring him to review some investigations and theories of his own, and then a new animation is aupecldded to his ordinary bearing, and the illustrations are dranatic. His large eyes expand, and his features seem to glow. The gesticulations are sometimes so happy and so numerous, that I have fancied one might understand some of his themes even if he were unable to hear. His notes consist of a few formulas, written out upon two or three Little strips of paper; and yet his lectures are as systematic as if elaborated with the greatest care. I have heard the remark made that Liebig is not an expounder of chemistry or an operator in chemistry but is chemistry itself. It is not difficult to see some of the probable data upon which this notion is founded. For example, he enters the laboratory, where he is surrounded by gentlemen engaged in a great variety of investigations. Here is one upon bensoio acid, there one upon hippuric acid, there one upon allantoin, there one upon the cyanogen compounds, here one upon a new gas, here one upon cheese, there others upon bread, and so on, all of them engaged in original investigation. He is ready to tell them the results for which they may look. Such is his familiarity with every fact in known chemistry, that its analogies are perpetuslly present, and enable him to premise almost anything with regard to probleml~ticalinvestigations. This vigilant surveillance, this powerful local memory, this readiness in affording explanation in all difficult matters connected with chemistrv have induced the ex~ressionof the above
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Albany Female Academy during the winter. This led t o his appointment there as a science teacher in 1840. He kept this position until some time in 1844. An essay on mechanical powers which he had prepared, earned him a gold medal from the Young Men's Association in Albany. He did some work in cooperation with Samuel Morse, the well-known inventor of the first practical telegraph; he established the first daguerreotype gallery in Albany in partnership with Thomas Cushman; he also found time to give some lectures on chemistry a t Newark College in Delaware in 1843 and 1844. Horsford's growing reputation brought him in contact with John W. Webster, professw of chemistry a t Harvard University. Webster, being familiar with Liebig's "Organic Chemistry in Its Application to Agriculture and Physiology," first published in 1841, urged him to go to Giessen. This involved considerable expense and would have consumed more than his savings. He was helped by friends in Albany, who were willing to pay for part of the cost of the trip and to lend him funds t o go abroad. One of them was Luther Tucker (1802-73), a highly influential member of the New York State Agricultural Society, and the owner and publisher of The Cultivator,' a monthly farm paper. Horsford's first interview with the great man "whose eenius has eiven such imnulse to chemical and aaricul-
1 The Cultivator carried on its masthead the motto: improve the soil and the mind."
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sister-in-law Phoebe Gardiner bv whom he had one daughter. Horsford was fortunate in being able t o interest Abbot Lawrence (1792-1855), a successful bnsinessman and manufacturer, in the promotion of edncation in science. With a donation of $50,000 for the It is interesting to compare Horsford's account of a establishment of a scientific school, to be named after lecture by Liebig with that of an earlier student, Carl the donor, Horsford organized its studies on the example Vogt (1817-95) who attended Liebig's lectures regularly of Liebig's laboratory and started lecturing and teachin the summer semester of 1834. A verbatim report of ing analytical chemistry to individual students. He part of a lecture, translated into English, appeared in was a good lecturer with a sanguine, enthusiastic temTHIS JOURNAL in 1936 (5). Of Liebig's lectures in perament, and directed the new school for 16 years. Munich, Volhard (6),who was hisfidus Achates in those Being of a practical turn of mind, he became absorbed years, said that they were neither very fluent nor per- in the study of foods, as is shown by many of his articles fect, frequently even halting with unmotivated pauses. published in Silliman's American Journal of Science, His mind seemed to be wandering. After a while his in the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and, consciousness returned and he resumed the thread of Sciences and in the Proceedings of the American Associahis interrupted story. tion for the Advancement of Science. I n 1861 he pnbHorsford's day in Giessen began at 5:30 A.M. After lished a book on "Theory and Art of Breadmaking." consuming a biscuit and a cup of milk (his regular He took out numerous patents on his inventions, some breakfast) he attended a lecture by Fresenius on sugar of which dealt with a new baking powder in which at 6: 15; at 7:00, anotherlecture by Ropp on crystallog- acid phosphate was used. This led to the establishraphy. He started working in the laboratory a t ment (in 1856) of the Rumford Chemical Works in 8:15. At 11:05, Horsford listened, with about 90 Providence, Rhode Island, which is still in operation. others, to Liebig's lecture (given every weekday) till These outside activities took up a good deal of about 12 :30. Notes were taken in ink to recall to mind Horsford's time so that in his later years a t the school the mass of facts and theories given. The midday most of the teaching was done by his assistant C. W. meal, at his lodgings, consisted of a kind of bread and Eliot (1834-1926). Horsford resigned in 1863 to milk soup, a bit of wild swine flesh, potatoes, and a devote all his time to his business. He was succeeded dessert. Relaxation after dinner was furnished by by Wolcott Gibbs, much to the regret of Eliot, who had perusing the Cultivator, Argus, and Journal sent by hoped to succeed Horsford. Six years later, however, obliging friends in Albany. The rest of the afternoon Eliot became president of Hanard University. Horswas again spent in the laboratory till 6: 30. A walk for ford prospered to such an extent that he could afford t o a mile and a swim in the Lahn followed and then back indulge in a number of hobbies and, being blessed with t o his room at 8 :00 for a luxurious (?) supper of biscuit five daughters, spent part of his acquired wealth in and milk. The rest of the evening was spent calculat- supplying Wellesley College with books and scientific ing analyses, reading the chemical journals, and closing apparatus. He continued to live in Cambridge untii the affairs of the day. Presumably not every day was his death on January 1, 1893. The accompanying as strenuous as this particular day, an account of which picture of Horsford represents him in middle age. Horsford gave in a letter to Tucker. Another one taken when he was well over 60 appeared in in 1940 The work Horsford performed at Liehig's suggestion THIS JOURNAL dealt with the value of different vegetable nutrients, OLIVER WOLCOTT GIBBS as deduced from their nitrogen content. It involved When Horsford, a rural up-state New Yorker, left, the analysis of wheat, rye, oats, corn, and the ash of clover. He also worked on the ammonia content of a city-bred New Yorker appeared in Liebig's laboratory. glaciers, and finally on glycocoll and some of its de- This was Oliver Wolcott Gibhs (1822-1908), the gifted composition products. All of this was published in the son of well-to-do parents, who enjoyed all the adAnnalen and read before the members of the Albany vantages that wealth and standing can confer. He Institute on Horsford's return to Albany in the spring graduated from Columbia (at that time still a college) of 1846. He did not stay long enough in Giessen t o ob- in 1841, and spent some time as assistant to Robert tain a Ph.D. in spite of the fact that all further tuition Hare in Philadelphia. In 1845 the College of Physifees were t o he waived in case he should decide to re- cians and Surgeons in New York awarded him an main. He had two good reasons: he did not want to M.D. degree. Instead of starting a practice, Gibbs incur more debts, and he needed a job badly in order t o went abroad (184548) to study chemistry, first in marry the girl he had left behind. He did not have t o Germany, under K. F. Rammelsberg (1813-99), wait very long. Thanks to the excellent recommenda- then under Heiurich Rose (1795-1864) for a whole tions of Liebig and Webster he was appointed in 1847 year, and finally nnder Liehig. Gibhs arrived in to the Rnmford professorship of science as applied to the Giessen a t the time Horsford left. Apart from the arts, at Harvard University. On August 4, 1847, he daily contact with Liebig and his students, he undertook married Mary L. Gardiner, whodied in 1856, leaving no doctoral work a t Giessen, and his publications in the him four daughters. Two years later he married his Annalen of 1853 and later refer to research carried out that everv fact in the science cost him labor to acquire and labor to retain: and though now ready to pronounce upon the history and properties of every known organic and inorganic compound, he has acquired this prodigious mms of scientific information, only with prodigious labor.
(n.
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in America. On leaving Giessen, Gibhs spent a year in University and from there to Yale where he succeeded Paris, attending the lectures of Laurent, Dumas, and Norton as professor of analytical and agricultural Regnault. Returning home in 1848, he became pro- chemistry in 1852. Yale University conferred an fessor of chemistry a t the College of the City of New honorary M.D. on Porter in 1854. Porter succeeded York, remaining there for 14 years. I n 1863 he in interesting his father-in-law, Joseph E. Sheffield, in succeeded Horsford as Rumford professor, and took the Yale Scientific School and because. of his many charge of the lahoratory of the Lawrence Scientific donations it was named the Sheffield Scientific School School. When the school was consolidated with the in 1861. Porter was its first dean of the faculty, and in chemistry department of Harvard in 1871, Gihhs con- 1862 also became professor of organic chemistry. He fined himself t o lecturing in spectroscopy and ther- resigned in 1864 because of poor health and died on modynamics, while maintaining a private lahoratory. August 25, 1866. Retiring a t 65, he continued research for ten more years. He died a t his estate in Newport, Rhode FREDERIC AUGUSTUS GENTH Island, in 1908. He was a founder and at one time One more name can he added t o those given above, president of the National Academy of Sciences and was chosen an honorary member of the German, the that of Frederic Augustus Genth (1820-93), a countryEnglish, and the American Chemical Societies. His man of Liebig. Born a t WW;itershach in Hessen many chemical achievements were recorded in 1909 Kassel on May 17, 1820, he studied (as was frequently by Th. W. Richards in a lengthy obituary (8). An the custom in Germany) at several different univerexcellent picture of Gibhs was puhlished in THIS JOUR-sities: first a t Heidelberg, then a t Giessen (around 1843), and finally at Marburg, where he ohtained his NAL in 1929 (9). Ph.D. under Bunsen in 1845. He established himself as Privat-dozent in mineralogy and chemistry at CHARLES MAYER WETHERILL Marhurg hut then abandoned his plans for a univerThe next American pupil of Liebig was Charles sity career and emigrated t o America in 1848, \vhere he Mayer Wetherill (1825-71), on whose life and work a lengthy illustrated biography was puhlished in 1929 opened a lahoratory for analytical chemistry, first in Baltimore and later in Philadelphia. When the chair (10). A few brief data will therefore suffice here. of chemistry and mineralogy at the University of Wetherill was horn and educated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania became vacant in 1871 it was offered to where he graduated from the University in 1845. Weatherill, and on his sudden death, t o Genth, who He then spent one year a t the analytical lahoratory taught there from 1872 to 1888. He resigned in 1888 t o of Booth and Boy6 and continued his studies abroad, resume his private practice. He died on Fehrnary 2, first in Paris and then in Giessen. He matriculated 1893. Genth's first work, on masopin, a new kind of there on November 6, 1847, and ohtained his Ph.D. on May 30, 1848, with a thesis "Uber Schwefelsaures resin, was undertaken a t Liebig's request. It was puhlished in the Annalen in 1843 (46, 124 (1843)). Aethyloxyd und dessen Zersetsungsproducte mit WasThree more papers appeared in the Annalen for 1845 ser" which was puhlished in the Annalen (66, 117 and 1846. These were sent t o Liehig from Marhurg. (1848)). Wetherill opened a lahoratory of his own, Some more research, carried out in Philadelphia, was which he conducted till 1853. After his marriage in published in the Annalen in 1851 and 1852. Genth's 1856 he moved to Lafayette, Indiana, where he pnh- later work was exclusively on mineral chemistry in lished a treatise on the manufacture of vinegar in which field he was pre-eminent. He is credited with 1860. I n 1862 he became the first chemist connected the discovery of 20 new minerals. Dr. Edgar Fahs with the newly created Department of Agriculture. Smith, who knew Genth well, wrote a commemorative I n 1864 he was appointed professor of chemistry at the article in 1926 (3). newly founded Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He died there of heart failure in 1871. SAMUEL WILLIAM JOHNSON JOHN ADDISON PORTER
The last American to study nuder Liehig in Giessen was John Addison Porter (1822-66), a native New Yorker, horn in Catskill on May 15, 1822. He entered Yale College in 1838 and graduated in 1842. I n May 1844 he was appointed tutor in Delaware College in Newark, New Jersey, which position he resigned in 1847 to go to Germany, where he studied agricultural chemistry under Liehig. Porter's researches dealing with ash analyses of human excrements, of oats, and of hay were published in the Annalen in three brief communications in 1849 and 1850. On his return to America Porter was for a few months assistant to Horsford. From Cambridge he went t o Brown
Of the few Americans who went to Liehig in the fmal 20 years of his life, the best known is Samuel William Johnson (183&1909). Born on July 3, 1830, a t Kingshoro, New York, he spent his boyhood on his father's farm at Deer River, New York, and then attended Lowville Academy where he received his first instruction in chemistry. While still of precollege age he wrote an essay, "On fixing ammonia," which was puhlished in the August, 1847, issue of Luther Tucker's Cultivator. I n 1848 he accepted an instrnctorship at Flushing Institute on Long Island. The following year he entered Yale University where he studied chemistry under Norton, after which he taught chemistry, physics, and human physiology a t
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the State Normal School in Albany for one year James C. Booth, having worked a year with Wohler (1851-52). On the advice of Norton he went abroad in Cassel (183334), wanted to go elsewhere for furfor two years (1853-55), first to Leipzig where he took ther study, his choice was not Liebig, but Berzelius. up analytical chemistry under 0. L. Erdmann (1804- The latter considered himself too old to be of further 69) and then to Munich where he obtained permission help to Booth, who then went to Vienna and later to t o work in Liebig's private laboratory. Here he in- Berlin, to study under Gustav Magnus (1802-70), vestieated the ashes of various ~ l a n t and s the contents .. of soils and strmms, iiud nlso made 3 i t ~ t l yof the nlkiili salts of mucic acid. Thr nwdtx were ~~ukllishcd in two articles in the Annalen of 1855. Liebig was so well nleased with his wunil that he asked Johnson to translate a polemical paper against J. B. Lawes into English. It was published the same year in Tucker's Country Gentleman. On his return t o America Johnson was appointed professor of analytical chemistry at the Yale Scientific School in 1856. The next year, when Yale conferred an honorary M.A. on Johnson, he also taught agricultural chemistry which he kept up for 40 years (until 1896). Although he had little time for research in his later years, he acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of agriculture and agricultural chemistry. His two books, "How Crops Grow" and "How Crops Feed," published in 1868 and 1870, became standard texts and gained wide circulation both here and abroad (in translation into six other languages). To chemists in this country Johnson is known through his translation of Fresenius' manuals. As early as 1856 Johnson started t o examine commercial fertilizers and thus became responsible for the introduction of regulatory measures. He was also an early advocate of state agricultural experiment stations, and for 23 years (1877-1900) was director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. I n 1888 he induced Osborne t o undertake a study of the vegetable proteins, a step which Vickery (11) conSamuel William Johnson siders one of the greatest of Johnson's contributions to science in view of the many outstanding accomplishments of Osborne and his co-workers. Johnson a pupil of Berzelius. The movement of foreign students was professionally connected with the activities of the to Giessen, which did not start in earnest until around American Chemical Society and was its president in 1842, when Liebig's famous book made its triumphant. march around the world, lost its momentum abruptly 1878. He died on July 21, 1909. Only brief mention is made here of three other with Liebig's departure for Munich in 1852. American chemists who were students in Munich in Liebig's time. They attended Liebig's lectures but LITERATURE CITED received laboratory instruction from his able assistant Volhard, and might better be classified as pupils of (2j VANKI.&STER; H. S., J. CHEM: EXUC., 21, 158 (1944). (3) SMITII,E. F., J . Am. Chem. Soe., Golden Jubilee Number, Volhard. William H. Brewer (1828-1910) studied in 48. --,71 . - 11426> \----,. Munich in 1858 and was professor of agriculture at (4) SAMPEY, J. R., J. CHEM.EDUC.,5, 123 (1928). Yale from 1864 to 1903 (12). Henry Adam Weber (5) GOOD,H. G., J. CHEM.EDUC.,13, 557 (1936). (1845-1912), who taught agricultural chemistry at (6) VOLHARD, J., Ann., 328.1-40 (1903). (7) BLISS,A. D . , J. CHEM.EDUC.,17, 353 (1940). Ohio State University from 1884 to 1897, studied in (8) R r c n A ~ ~Th. s , W., Ber., 42, 5037 (1909). Munich around 1868 (13). Edward Renouf (1848(9) SMITH,E. F., J. CHEM.EDUC.,6, 1219 (1929). 1934) spent two semesters in Munich (1867-68) and (10) Ibid., 1076, 1215, 1461, 1668, 1916, 2160. taught at Johns Hopkins from 1888 to 1911 (14). (11) VICKERY, H. B., J. CHEM.EDUC.,19, 73 (1942). Two items may finally be added here to support the (12) JOHNSON, A., Editor, "Dictionary of American Biography," Vol. 111, C. Scribner's Sons, New Yark, 1929, p. 25. writer's ideas regarding the apparently small number of American pupils of Liebig. As Volhard (6) has (13) MALONE,DUMAS,Editor, "Dictionary of American Biography," Vol. XIX, 1936, p. 582. pointed out, there were a t the beginning only pharma- (14) CATTELL, J. McK., ANn J A Q U ECATPELL, ~ Editors, "Americists in Liebig's laboratory, and it took some time becan Men of Science," 4th ed., The Science Press, Lanfore chemistry students also went to Giessen. When oaster, Pennsylvania, 1927, p. 809. A
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