LIFE, CARBON'S OUTSTANDING PROPERTY 53 



came the founder of modern organic chemistry, the chem- 

 istry of the compounds of carbon. 



Even more important than Liebig's researches and dis- 

 coveries was his success as a teacher. He had an enchant- 

 ing personality which transferred his enthusiam for 

 chemistry to the large group of pupils who flocked to his 

 laboratory from everywhere. He was endowed with the 

 rare faculty of making his pupils' thoughts his own, of guid- 

 ing them to independent thinking and research. After some 

 years he was generally considered as the supreme authority 

 on scientific chemistry. His pupils were called to profes- 

 sorships in universities in Germany and other European 

 countries. 



In order to appreciate fully Liebig's achievements, it 

 should also be stated that the means at his command were 

 extremely modest. Since prior to his appointment at 

 Giessen, there were no chemical laboratories, he had to con- 

 tent himself with a former military guard-room which was 

 transformed into a laboratory. That guard-room became 

 famous for the enormous number of scientific discoveries 

 emanating from it. 



Liebig's activity marks the beginning of the great de- 

 velopment of chemical science and its application to in- 

 dustry in Germany and Central Europe in general. Liebig 

 himself had a keen practical sense; he was always prone to 

 apply his results to problems of every day life. By an ap- 

 plication of his findings to the problems of agriculture he 

 became the founder of a new school of thought in agricul- 

 tural chemistry. Liebig also stimulated the interest of the 

 public at large in chemical science. Outstanding among 

 his popular writings are his Chemische Brief e, published dur- 

 ing the fifth and sixth decades of the past century, first 

 printed in the Frankfurter Zeitung, still one of the greatest 

 German daily newspapers. 



