490 



NATURE 



\_A/arch 20, 1884 



Ai.d yet, bound as tliey were in the tics of a friendship the 

 purity and warmth of whith were but characteristic of the men, 

 and although each influenced the other's walk and work in life to 

 a degree which it is almost impossible to gauge, such was the 

 strenyih of their individuality and mch the force of their genius 

 that, without a doubt, either would have been a great figure in 

 the history of science if the other had not existed. 



The conditions under which minds of the highest type ari^e 

 and develop have on more than one occasion engaged the atten- 

 tion of this audience. Although theie were circumstances in 

 Wohler's surroundings which in early life may have influenced 

 the bent of his mind, it is not easy to see whence sprang that 

 passionate love of nature which was so strikingly exhibited in 

 the man. His father, August Anton Wbhler, was formerly an 

 equerry in the service of the Elector William II. of Hesse; he 

 afterwards came to live at Frankfort, and became a leading 

 citizen of that tow-n. His wise liberality and public spirit are 

 commemorated in the Wohler Foundation and Wohler School, 

 inslitulioiis luiown to every F'rankforter. His mother was con- 

 nected liy marriage with the minister of Eschersheim, a village 

 near Frankfort, and it was in the minister's house that Frederick 

 Wohler first saw the light, on July 31, iSoo. Even in early youth 

 his passion for experimenting and collecting manifested itself, to 

 the neglect not unfrequently of the lessons of the gyinnasium ; 

 indeed it would apptar that during his school career Wohler was 

 not characterised by either special diligence or knowledge. The 

 bent of his mind towards natural science was directed by Dr. 

 Euch, a retired physician who had devoted himself to the study 

 of chemistry and physics; and it v\as in the kitchen of his 

 patron's house that he prepared the then newly-discovered 

 clement selenium, of which an account was afterwards sent by 

 Dr. Buch to Gilbert's AmiaUn, with Wohler's name at the head 

 of it. The elder Wohler appears to have been a man of con- 

 siderable artistic ftelii g, aid under his direction the son was 

 taught sketching and otheiwise educated in that perception of 

 natural beauty which comes out so strikingly in his after life ; 

 and he was encouraged to make himself familiar with the liteia- 

 ture which the genius of Schiller and Goethe has ennobled. He 

 had, moreover, to thank his father for that love of physical 

 exercise and passion for outdoor life which reacted so bei.eficially 

 upon his development, and contributeel so largely to ihe uni- 

 formly good health which he enjoyed to within a few days of his 

 death. Mainly, it would seem, because his father had been 

 there before him, W'ohler, in his twentieth year, entered the 

 University of Marbur-g. It was his own and the faniily'.s wish 

 that he should study medicine, and he accordingly put his name 

 down for the lectures of biinger on Anatomy, Gerling on Physics 

 and Mathematics, and Wenderoth on Botany. He found time 

 also to attend Ullmann's classes on Mineralogy; and although 

 he reclined to hear Wurzer's lectures on Chemistry, he by no 

 means neglected that science. He transformed his living-room 

 into a laboratory, and to the great, and perhaps not undeserved, 

 disgust of his landlady, occupied himself with the preparation ancl 

 study of the properties of prussic acid, thie cyanic acid, .-nd other 

 cyanogen compounds. He discovered at that time, without k novv- 

 ing that Sir Humphry Davy had anticipated him, the beauiifully 

 ciystalline but intensely poisonous iodide of cyanogen ; and in the 

 little j.a] er on cyarogen compounds which his good friend Dr. 

 Buch communicated to Gilbert's ^««r7/i?« for him we have the 

 first de: crint ion of the remarkable behaviour of mercuric thio- 

 tyar.ate on heatinj", which has astonished and amused us in the 

 so called " Pharaoh's Serpent." 



Wohler, attracted by the fame of Leopold Ginelin, left Mar- 

 burg for Heidelbei-g. His main idea was to hear the lectures of 

 that distinguished man, but Gmelin declared this to be unneces- 

 sary and a w aste of time. Wohler in fact never atterded any 

 systematic lectures on chemisli'y ; he had access, however-, to the 

 old cloisters which at that time constituted the Heidelberg 

 laboratrry, and there began the work on cyanic acid which some 

 four or five years later was destined to culminate in the great 

 discovery of the synthesis of urea. His association, at this 

 tirce, ^ with Tiedeniann, who was engaged in physiological 

 chemical inveslif,ation with Gmelin, bad also considerable influ- 

 ence in detei mining the o'ireclion of much of his future work, 

 whilst its immediate effect was the publication in Tiedemann's 

 Zi.lsihrift Jtir Physiolooie oi the I'tsults of an inquiry into the 

 transformation experienced by various sulistar.ces, organic and 

 inoiganic, in their p.assage through the organism. In 1823 

 Wohler obtained his degr-ee, when, on Gmelin's advice, he de- 

 lerained to feiUow his master's example, ar.d .abandon ir.edicine 



for chemistry. At that lime the great Swedish chemist Berzelius 

 was at the summit of his fame : his ma-terly analytical skill, no 

 less than his labours tow ards the development of chemical theory, 

 had made him supreme anrong the chemists of Europe, and to 

 Stockholm therefore, Wbhler, acting on the advice of Gmelin, 

 determined to go. He was warmly welcomed by Berzelius, on 

 whom his comn.unications to Gilbert's Aiinalen had made a 

 favourable impression, and with the offer of a place in the 

 private laboratory of the illustrious Swede, Wohler set out for 

 the Scandinavian ca|)it.al. Of his experiences with Berzelius 

 his pupil has left us a delightful account. It is valuable not 

 only as a charming character-sketch of the great teacher, but 

 also from the side-light it throws upon thenatur-eanel disposition 

 of Wbhler and himself. It is interesting, too, as .an account of 

 the mode in which Berzelius worked and taught, and as showing 

 how the typical laboratory of that time contrasted with the 

 tetjiples which have since been reared by the disciples of Herme^. 



" With a beating heart," says Wbhler, " I stood before Bei-ze- 

 lius's door and rang the bell. It was opened by a well-clad, 

 portly, vigorous-looking man. It was Berzelius himself. .... 

 As he led me into his laboratory I was as in a dream, doubting 

 if I could really be in the classical place which was the object 

 of my aspirations. ... I was at that time the only one in the 

 laboratory: before me were Mitscherlich and Heinrich and 

 Gustav Rose : after me came Magnus. The laboratory con- 

 sisted of tw-o ordinary rooms furnished in the simplest possible 

 way ; there were no furnaces nor draught places ; neither gas 

 nor water service. In one of the rooms were two common deal 

 tables ; on one of these worked Berzeliu', the other was intended 

 for me. On the walls were a few cupboards for the reagents ; 

 in the middle was a mercury trough, whdst the glass-blower's 

 lamp stood on the hearth. In addition was a sink, consisting of 

 an earthenware cistern and tap, standing over a wooden tub, 

 where the despotic Anna, the cook, had daily to clean the 

 apparatus. In the ether room were the balances, and some 

 cupboar-ds containing instruments : close to was a small work- 

 shop fitted with a latl.e. Iir the neighbouring kitchen, in v> hich 

 Anna pr epared the meals, was a small but seldom-used furnace 

 and the never-cool sand-bath." 



Wbhler's first exercises were in mineral analysis, in order 

 that he might becorr.e acquainted wiih Berzelius's special 

 methods and manipulative pr'ocedure. At that tin.e he pre- 

 pared, amoig other products, some new compounds of tung- 

 sten, notably the beautifully crystallised monoxychloride and 

 the tungsten sodium-bronze (NajW^Og), which some twent)- 

 five years later was introduceel into the arts as a bronze 

 powder. It was, however, with his investigation on cyanic acid 

 that both he ai.d Berzelius were mainly interested. In Berze- 

 lius's opinion the existence of this body was of importance from 

 the light it seemed to him to throw upon the validity of the new 

 chlorine theory. "I was surprised," s.ays Wbhler-, "to hear 

 him, the hitherto steadfast upholder of the old notion, now 

 always talk of chlorine instead of oxidise' 1 hydrochloric 

 acid. Once, when Anna, in cleaning some vessel, remarked 

 that it smelt strongly of oxymuriatic acid, Berzelius said, 

 ' Hearest thou, Anna, thou must no longer speak r f oxidised 

 muriatic -cid ; thou must call it cZ/om;? ; that is better.'" With 

 w hat fee line's w oulel Davy have listened to that colloquy between 

 the Swedish philosopher and his factotum! Chlorine was dis- 

 covered by Berzelius's illustrious countryman, Scheele, Imt its 

 true nature was first demonstrated in the laboratory of the Koyal 

 Institution. 



A couple of months were now spent in travel with Berzelius, 

 in company with the two Brongniarts, Alexander the geolcgist 

 and Adolph the botanist, during which they explored the greater 

 portion of the geologically interesting parts of SonthernSweden 

 and Norway, and collected rich stores of those wonderful mine- 

 rals fur which Scandinavia is famous. .Scandinavia is no less 

 famous for s.almon andtr-out, and it was on his return fromafish- 

 ii g expedition in Norway that the travellers met with Davy, 

 who, as readers of "Salmonia" know, handled his rod with 

 great ze^t and zeal. Wbhler', who as a boy had learned the 

 story from his friend Dr. Buch, of the isolation of the alkaline 

 metals by Davy, and who, aided by his little titer-, whose 

 business it was to blow the bellows, had toiled, not unsuc- 

 cessfully, to male potassium irr the kitchen fire, was presented 

 to the famous chemist. 



On the return to Stockholm, Wbhler took leave of Berzelius 

 and pr-epared to return to Germany. Of his association with 

 this great man Wbhler had ever the kindliest memories. Al- 



