106 Bioyraphy of Berzelius. 



by means of a long series of experiments, he resigned the 

 i .nation of the equivalent of cerium to Hisinger, and did not 

 occupy himself more specially with this metal. Thus pro- 

 bably the discovery of the oxides of two other metals, accom- 

 plished by Mosander, thirty-six years after that of cerium, 

 escaped him. 



Besides the examination of cerite, Berzelius undertook at 

 that time the investigation of other new and interesting mine- 

 rals. But during the first period of his scientific activity he was 

 chiefly occupied in an entirely different branch of chemistry. 

 Berzelius* first avocation in the world, by which, poor as 

 he was, he had to earn his livelihood, was that of physician. 

 He naturally sought in this profession for those occupations 

 especially in which sound chemical knowledge was indispen- 

 sable. Thus he examined several of the natural mineral 

 waters of Sweden, and these investigations, although inferior 

 to those of a similar nature which he subsequently carried 

 out, especially that most excellent of them all on the Carlsbad 

 water, still in every respect belong to the best of their time. 

 In consequence of these investigations he established in Stock- 

 holm a manufactory for preparing these waters artificially. 



But it was quite natural that as physician he should be 

 induced to take up the study of animal chemistry. What 

 he achieved in this branch of chemistry, and indeed within a 

 short space of time, is extraordinary, opening as it were an 

 entirely new field in this department of organic chemistry. 



Before Berzelius' time animal chemistry was treated nearly 

 in the same manner as that of inorganic bodies ; the con- 

 stituents of the animal body were arranged in certain classes, 

 and described merely as objects of chemical decomposition, 

 perhaps with a few general remarks as to their functions 

 in animal life. This mode of treatment is, in a scientific point 

 of view, totally valueless. Berzelius endeavoured to com- 

 bine anatomical with chemical investigations, so as to tend 

 to. a common end, in order in this to give to experiments 

 a higher scientific connection, and to direct the attention of 

 the chemist to the physiological aspect of the subject. 



In this spirit he investigated almost all parts of the animal 

 body, solids and fluids, certainly only qualitatively, as at the 



