A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



" To the solid ground 

 Of Nature trusts the iiiiud which builds for aye." — WoRUSWORTH. 



THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1897. 



SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES. 

 XXX.— Stanislao Cannizzaro. 



IN the autumn of last year there occurred in Rome an 

 event which attracted the attention of the whole 

 scientific world, and more especially of that portion of it 

 which is concerned with chemistry. The occasion was 

 the celebration of the seventieth anniversary of the birth 

 of Prof. Stanislao Cannizzaro, Senator of the Kingdom of 

 Italy, and Professor of Chemistry in the University of 

 Rome. The pages of this journal have already borne 

 witness to the feelings of esteem and gratitude which that 

 event evoked. At the public meeting called to do him 

 honour, all the learned bodies in the world which have any 

 ncern with science, or have any regard for its welfare, 

 inbined to offer their felicitations, and vied with each in 

 the warmth of their expressions of appreciation and good 

 will, and a multitude of letters and telegrams were 

 received from chemists in all parts of Europe and America. 

 The place of honour in the list of the addresses, as 

 enumerated in the interesting account of the ceremony 

 since published, is given to that from the Royal Society, 

 which repeated the terms in which the Council had 

 |)re\iously made known to Prof. Cannizzaro its reason for 

 .1 warding him the highest distinction in its power. Next 

 ines that from the Chemical Society, which recalls with 

 de that the name of Cannizzaro has given lustre to 

 the roll of its foreign members for more than half the 

 period of his life-time. 



In what follows we desire to give an account of the 

 life and labours of one whom men of all nations have thus 

 shown themselves eager to honour. 



Stanislao Cannizzaro, the fourth and youngest son of 

 Mariano Cannizzaro and Anna Uibenedetto, was born on 

 July 13, 1826, at Palermo, where his father was a magis- 

 trate, Director-General of the Sicilian Police, and subse- 

 c|uently President of the High Court of Chancery. The 

 future chemist was educated partly at home and partly 

 at the normal school of his native city, and on the death 

 of his father in 1836, he was placed in the Caroline 

 NO. 1436, VOL. 56] 



Calasanzio College. The cholera epidemic of 1837 

 ravaged Palermo, the young Cannizzaro lost two of his 

 brothers, he himself was attacked by the terrible scourge, 

 and it was only after a tedious convalescence that he 

 was able to resume his studies. Elementary education in 

 Sicily at that time was wholly under the control and 

 direction of the priests : grammar, rhetoric, poetry and 

 philosophy, with a very small modicum of mathematics 

 and geography, constituted the pabulum on which the 

 youth of the period was fed. The physical sciences, of 

 course, had no place in a system which was essentially 

 media;val. The boy soon gave evidence of his power, 

 and after a school career of distinction he entered, in 

 1841, the University of Palermo with the intention of 

 devoting himself to medicine. 



The subject, however, proved uncongenial, and the 

 youth tried in vain to pass the necessary examinations. 

 Stimulated, however, by Foder<\, who at that time taught 

 physiology in Palermo, and with whom the young student 

 became intimately acquainted, he was led to take up 

 experimental work in connection with chemical physi- 

 ology. It is needless to say that at this period Palermo 

 possessed no laboratory accommodation, and all the 

 manipulative essays that the young experimentalist could 

 venture upon had to be done at his home, and with such 

 improvised appliances as he could command. In the 

 autumn of 1845 he went to Naples, where he came in 

 contact with Melloni, the most eminent Italian physicist 

 of his time, with whom he contracted a warm friendship. 

 Mainly through the recommendation of Melloni, who 

 quickly learned to appreciate the character and power of 

 his young friend, Piria, who is honourably known to 

 chemists by his researches on plant products, was led to 

 oflfer the young Sicilian the post oi preparateur in the 

 chemical laboratory of the University of Pisa. To Pisa 

 accordingly he went, and the step decided his career. 

 What Melloni was to physics in Italy at that period, 

 Piria was to chemistry. The young assistant could 

 have had no better master. Raffaele Piria, then in the 

 full tide of his vigour, was an admirable, albeit a most 

 exacting teacher. A distinguished pupil of Dumas, and a 

 remarkable expositor, his lectures were distinguished by 

 the same love of method, of orderly arrangement, of 



