SKETCH OF KARL WILHELM SCHEELE. 839 



SKETCH OF KAKL WILHELM SCHEELE. 



THE life of Scheele affords a most conspicuous example in the his- 

 tory of science of a worker who has accomplished great things 

 with the most limited resources. " We stand astonished," said Pro- 

 fessor Cleve, in his oration at the celebration of the one-hundredth 

 anniversary of the chemist's death from, which we have derived most 

 of the materials for this sketch "that a man who only reached his 

 forty-third year should have been able, during his short life, always 

 tormented by material wants, to have arrived, by means restricted and' 

 inconvenient, at results which have had so mighty an influence on 

 chemistry." Dumas, comparing him with Lavoisier and Priestley, has 

 said of him that " brought up in a pharmacy, poor and modest, unknown 

 to every one, and hardly knowing himself, inferior to the former but 

 superior to the latter, vanquishing Nature by the force of patience and 

 genius, he snatched her secrets from her and assured an eternal fame 

 for himself." 



Karl Wilhelm Scheele was descended from an old family of 

 German origin, and was born at Stralsund, Sweden, December 9 or 19 

 (authorities differ), 1742. He gave no particular promise in childhood, 

 but was considered " slow," and only moderately intelligent. He took 

 no part in the sports of his brothers and sisters, but amused himself 

 with making all sorts of little objects, and would appear greatly 

 pleased when any of his devices proved successful. His instruction 

 began early at home, and he was at a later period given the usual 

 course at the gymnasium in Stralsund. He became interested in phar- 

 macy through the influence of two friends of the family ; and, when 

 fourteen years of age, he was entered as an apprentice with Banch, a 

 pharmacist of Gothenburg, where he soon found himself at home. A 

 friend suggested to him to study chemistry, and his real vocation was 

 revealed to him by the reading of the works of Neumann. From 

 these he advanced to the works of Lemery, of Stahl, the author of the 

 theory of phlogiston, and of Kunkel, the discoverer of phosphorus. 

 He used to repeat secretly at night the experiments he read about in 

 these books, and thus accustomed himself early to do the works of the 

 masters over again with the most scanty and imperfect materials. 



After six years of apprenticeship and two years longer of residence 

 in Gothenburg, Scheele became engaged at Malmo, with the phar- 

 macist Kjellstrdm, who, having himself a taste for experimental chem- 

 istry, could sympathize with him. He spent his spare money in 

 buying books upon this science ; and it was during his residence here 

 that he made the researches on the Sal acetosellce that led up to the 

 discovery of oxalic acid. He sent a memoir on this subject to the 

 Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, which Bergman, to whom he in- 

 trusted it, withheld, because, he said, it contained nothing new. 



