THE 
EDINBURGH 
PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 
Art. I .— Biographical Memoir of Count Claude Louis Ber- 
THQLLET*. 
1 HE name of M. Berthollet has been long known in every 
part of Europe, and cannot fail to occupy a high place among 
the distinguished chemists of the nineteenth century. He was 
born at Taloire in Savoy, on the 9th December 1748, and, like 
his distinguished colleague M. La Grange, he was an Italian by 
birth as well as by education. After having taken his degree of 
Doctor of Medicine at the University of Turin, he went to Pa- 
ris, where he carried on the medical profession with so much 
success, that he was nominated one of the Physicians of the 
Duke of Orleans, the uncle of the reigning Sovereign. Not- 
withstanding the excellence of this appointment, he seems to 
have devoted the greatest part of his time to the study of Che- 
mistry, which soon became his exclusive occupation. 
The brilliant discoveries which had been made by Black, 
Priestley, Scheele, and Cavendish, formed the elements of that 
grand revolution in chemistry, which was completed under the 
direction of Lavoisier. In this great work the French chemist 
was associated with Fourcroy and Berthollet, the one distin- 
guished by his eloquence and his powers of illustration, and the 
other by his sagacity and his experimental acquirements. As 
* For some of the facts in this hasty and imperfect sketch, we have been in= 
debted to a short life of Count Berthollet, by M. Auger. 
VOL. IX. NO. 17. JULY 1823* 
A 
