xvi 



selected Wohler and his friend and fellow-student, G. Spiess, to be 

 present at every birth in the institution he attended during their last 

 year of medical study. 



In September Wohler and Spiess went through their sanitats 

 examination and received the degree of Doctor in Medicine, Surgery, 

 and Midwifery. Wohler was now to begin travelling in order to visit 

 larger hospitals, when Gmelin suddenly gave an entirely new direc- 

 tion to his life by earnestly advising him to give up the practice of 

 medicine and to devote himself entirely to chemistry. Without taking 

 much time to reflect, and certain of his father's consent, Wohler 

 gladly agreed to Gmelin's proposal. By Gmelin's advice, and encou- 

 raged by the favourable manner in which Berzelius had noticed 

 Wohler's earliest researches in his " Jahresberichte," young Wohler 

 applied to Berzelius for permission to work in his laboratory, which 

 application was received in the most flattering manner. 



Wohler decided to travel to Stockholm by way of Liibeck. At 

 Liibeck he took a passage in a small sailing-vessel bound for Stock- 

 holm ; but the departure of the vessel was deferred from week to 

 week, and he was actually detained in Liibeck for six weeks. He did 

 not, however, find this altogether a waste of time, for he got an intro- 

 duction through Menge, tbe dealer in minerals, to the scientific apothe- 

 cary Kind, and in Kind's laboratory he worked at the preparation of 

 larger quantities of the metal potassium. At length Wohler sailed for 

 Stockholm. After a very stormy passage he reached the Swedish 

 coast at Dalaro, and on arriving at Stockholm a few days later 

 received the warmest welcome from Berzelius. 



A University laboratory is now a very different thing from what it 

 was in those days. Wohler was the only student in the laboratory of 

 Berzelius. The laboratory consisted of two ordinary rooms, in which 

 the chemists worked at deal tables. In a kitchen close by where their 

 meals were prepared, and where the servant had to clean their chemical 

 apparatus, stood a little furnace and a heated sand-bath. 



Here Wohler worked out some experiments on minerals, selecting 

 chiefly those containing elements unknown to him, such as compounds 

 of lithium and tungsten. Later on he returned to his experiments on 

 cyanic acid. In these Berzelius took a special interest, as they seemed 

 likely to cast a new light on the constitution of chemical compounds. 



Besides working at these experiments, Wohler assisted Berzelius 

 in his beautiful research on hydrofluoric acid, his discovery of silicon, 

 of boron, and of zirconium. 



Whilst engaged during the day on these researches Wohler used 

 to work during his evenings at the Swedish language, translating 

 Berzelius' papers into German for " Poggendorffs Annalen." In after 

 years he used regularly to translate Berzelius' " Jahresbericht," as 

 well as his " Lehrbuch." 



