92 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



felt soon seriously the great need of better modes of ele- 

 mentary organic analysis. His first eftbrts were therefore 

 directed towards that end as soon as he returned to his 

 native country, Germany, as professor of chemistry in the 

 university of Giesen in 1824. The results obtained in that 

 direction by him, and those who benefited by his instruc- 

 tions, after five years of careful work, are a lasting monument 

 of skill and perseverance ; they have made his n.inie familiar 

 to every chemist, and have earned for him the name of 

 founder of oiganic chemistry. 1 he rapidity of the execu- 

 tion of an organic elementary analysis, and the unsurpassed 

 exactness of the analytical results obtained, tended to increase 

 in an unusual degree the knowledge of the true elementary 

 composition of many organic substances and placed the 

 analytical modes of organic chemistry even above those of 

 inorganic chemistry of the time. Enthusiastic students of 

 chemistry from all parts of the world soon flocked to his 

 laboratory, which, endowed by the munificence of the govern- 

 ment of the duchy of Hessen-Darmstadt, opened its doors on 

 equally liberal terms to all, without regard to nationality. 



Supported in many of his intricate and most important in- 

 vestigations of organic substances by his life-long friend, F. 

 Wohler, one of the most thorough and most successful inves- 

 tigators during the past fifty years, and surrounded by 

 numerous and interested pupils, who frequently soon devel- 

 oped into valuable assistants and successful co-laborers, he 

 secured Avithin a period of fifteen ytars, from 1824 to 1839, 

 a rich store of experimental observations regarding the ele- 

 mentary composition, as well as other important qualities oi 

 a large number of organic substances of every description. 

 His superior knowledge of the characteristics of organic 

 compounds induced him to venture upon the study of the 

 essential proximate constituents of plants and of animals, 

 their food, their secretions and their excretions ; it may 

 sufiice here to refer in this connection to his examination of 

 the nitrogenous substances of plants and of animals, of the 

 blood, of the flesh, of the composition of the bile and of the 

 urinary secretions. Liebig's main efforts since 1840 were 

 directed towards the application of chemistry in agriculture 

 and in physiology. 



