546 JEAN-BAPTISTE-ANDKlS DUMAS. 



First Empire produced such an aversion to a military life that his par- 

 ents abandoned their plan, and apprenticed him to an apothecary of the 

 town. He remained in this situation, however, but a short time ; for, 

 owing to the same sad causes, he had formed an earnest desire to leave 

 his home, and, his parents yielding to his wish, he travelled on foot to 

 Geneva in 1816, where he had relatives who gave him a friendly wel- 

 come, and where he found employment in the pharmacy of Le lloyer. 



At that time Geneva was the centre of much scientific activity, and 

 young Dumas, while discharging his duties in the pharmacy, had the 

 opportunity of attending lectures on botany by M. de Caudolle, on 

 physics by M. Pictet, and on chemistry by M. Gaspard de la Rive ; 

 and from these lectures he a'^quired an earnest zeal for scientific in- 

 vestigation, liie laboratory of the pharmacy gave him the necessary 

 opportunities for experimenting, and an observation which he made of 

 the definite proportions of water contained in various commercial 

 salts, although yielding no new z-esults, gained for him the attention 

 and friendship of De la Rive. Soon after we find the young philoso- 

 pher attempting to deduce the volumes of the atoms in solid and liquid 

 bodies ny carefully determining their specific gravities, and thus an- 

 ticipating a method which thirty years later was more fully developed 

 by Hermann Kopp. 



About this time young Dumas had the good fortune to render an 

 important service to one of the most distinguished phj'sicians of 

 Geneva, whose name is associated with the beneficial uses of iodine 

 in cases of goitre. It had occurred to Dr. Coindet that burnt sponge, 

 then generally used as a remedy for that disease, might owe its efficacy 

 to the presence of a small amount of iodine ; and on referring the 

 question to Dumas, the young chemist not only proved the presence 

 of iodine in the sponge, but also indicated the best method of adminis- 

 tering what proved to be almost a specific remedy. It was in con- 

 nection with this investigation that Dumas's name first appears in 

 public. The discovery produced a great sensation, and for many 

 years the manufacture of iodine preparations brought both wealth 

 and reputation to the pharmacy of Le Royer. 



Soon after, Dumas formed an intimacy with Dr. J. L, Prevost, then 

 recently returned from pursuing his studies in P^diiiburgh and Dublin, 

 and was induced to undertake a series of physiological investigations, 

 which for a time withdrew him from his strictly chemical studies. 

 Several valuable papers on physiologiail subjects were published by 

 Prevost and Dumas, which attracted the notice of Alexander von 

 Humboldt, who on visiting Geneva, in 1822, sought out Dumas and 



