if Edinburgh, Session 1873-74. 
307 
3. Obituary Notice of Justus Liebig. By Professor 
Orum Brown. 
Justus Liebig was born on the 12th May 1803, at Darmstadt, 
where his father carried on business as a grocer and colour mer- 
chant. He early showed a strong inclination to the study of 
experimental chemistry, reading all the chemical books he could 
procure from the Darmstadt Library, and repeating every experi- 
ment he read of, as far as he could obtain from his father’s ware- 
house necessary materials. His father acceded to his wish that 
he should be a chemist, and as the only way in which this could 
be carried out, sent him at the age of fifteen to an apothecary’s 
shop to learn chemistry. There he remained only ten months, 
and he returned to Darmstadt satisfied that he must seek some 
other mode of obtaining his object. He remained at home for 
some months preparing for a University course, upon which he 
entered in 1819 at Bonn. He soon left Bonn for Erlangen, where 
he studied chemistry under Kastner. When at Erlangen he 
attended Schelling’s lectures, and long after used to speak of 
the interest he had taken in them, and of the injurious effect they 
had exercised upon his success as a practical investigator. Both 
at Bonn and at Erlangen he founded a students’ society of 
chemistry and physics, in which the members communicated and 
discussed novelties of science. Liebig left Erlangen in 1822, 
having already published a paper on the preparation of Schwein- 
furth green. 
Assisted by the liberality of the Grand Duke Louis of Hesse, 
he proceeded to Paris, where he attended the lectures of Gay-Lussac, 
Thenard, and Dulong, and obtained from Gay-Lussac permission 
to work in his private laboratory. He there carried on his investi- 
gation into the composition and properties of the fulminates, the 
results of which he communicated to the Academy. He at once 
attracted the notice of Humboldt, who was then resident in Paris, 
and through his influence was appointed, in 1824, Extraordinary 
Professor of Chemistry in the University of Giessen. In 1826 
he was raised to the ordinary professorship. In 1845 the Grand 
Duke of Hesse conferred upon him the title of Baron von Liebig. 
In 1852 he accepted an invitation by the Bavarian Government 
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