SKETCH OF KARL WILHELM SCHEELE. 841 



Bergman presided on that day, and received Scheele in the name of 

 the Academy, addressing him in terms of warm eulogy. It was on 

 this occasion that Scheele read his paper on the preparation of calomel. 

 He had jnst passed his examination as a pharmacist, and received an 

 authorization, free of charge in consideration of his services, to keep 

 the shop at Koping. Bergman, in the same year, secured for him a 

 pension of one hundred riksdalers to encourage and assist his investi- 

 gations in chemistry, which was continued till his death. 



Scheele had now before him the prospect of an easier future. But, 

 although he had never before been ill, he had an attack of gout toward 

 the end of 1775. He nevertheless continued his studies. In February, 

 1786, he sent to the Academy of Sciences his memoir on gallic acid. 

 In the same month he was attacked with phthisis ; and this disease 

 ended with his death on the 21st of May of that year, "t odays after 

 he had married the widow of his predecessor in the pharmacy. 



Scheele was a man of medium stature and vigorous constitution, 

 and was as modest as he was deservedly famous. Thus he wrote to a 

 friend on the occasion of his being elected to the Academy of Turin : 

 " I really believe they think that I am one of the greatest chemists of 

 the time, and they might make me proud. If they keep on in this 

 way, I might come to think I had as much experience and genius as 

 Macquer and Bergman. But I believe, in truth, that those worthy 

 men have more knowledge in their fingers than I have in my head." 

 His education was not extensive, but he had been accustomed from 

 his youth to think independently and without prejudice, and to verify 

 his conclusions, and never to believe any assertion in chemistry till he 

 had personally tested its validity. 



There were no grand, elaborately furnished laboratories in those 

 days, and nearly all the great chemists who did so much to put the 

 science on a firm foundation began their work in pharmacists' shops. 

 Scheele's apparatus was of the most simple character, and included a 

 few retorts, common bottles and flasks, and, for experiments on gases, 

 bladders. To collect a gas, he fastened the bladder tightly to the neck 

 of the retort, in which the chemicals for the development of the gas 

 had been placed. If he had to deal with such a gas as nitrous oxide, 

 he saw that the interior of the bladder was well imbued with oil. He 

 usually employed wooden tubes instead of glass ones, lining their 

 interior with a goose-quill. It would be discouraging to a young 

 chemist of to-day to be limited to such apparatus ; but Scheele made 

 up for what was wanting in his tools by his remarkable faculty of 

 observation, perseverance, and keenness of discernment. In his experi- 

 ments he observed all of the slightest details, and went so near to the 

 bottom of things that he left very little for others to discover in any 

 of the work that he did. 



Scheele's scientific labors were performed in different fields of chem- 

 istry general, inorganic, organic, and physiological. The "Treatise 



