April 2u, 1873.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
851 
fjlmrmiututical Journal. 
-4- 
SATURDAY , APRIL 26, 1873. 
Communications for this Journal, and books for review, etc., 
should be addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
Instructions from Members and Associates respecting the 
transmission of the Journal should be sent to Elias Brem- 
ridge, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square, W.C. 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
Street, London, W. Envelopes indorsed “ Pharm. Journ.” 
JUSTUS VON LIEBIG. 
An diesem Apparate ist nichts neu als seine Ein- 
fachheit und die voU-kommene Zuverlassigkeit welche 
er gewdhrt: “ in this apparatus there is nothing new 
hut its simplicity and thorough trustworthiness.” 
Such were the words of Liebig when announcing to 
the world his practical creation of organic chemistry. 
The man himself speaks out in this sentence. 
“Simplicity” and “trustworthiness” were not less 
the characteristics of the method than of its author. 
Versatile as was his genius, and various as were its 
products, he never proved false to those twin- 
requisites of science. 
“ Servetur ad imum 
Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi conatet,” 
was as much his motto as that of the Roman sage ; 
and whether his work lay in the laboratory or in the 
lecture-room ; in the domain of agriculture or in that 
of popular education, it combined, in a degree seldom 
matched in the history of inductive research, the 
“ simplicity ” and the “ trustworthiness ” which are 
at once the symbol and the test of truth. 
In another part of the Journal we have entered, 
with sufficient fulness, into the narrative of Liebig’s 
personal career. The “exceeding great reward,” 
which is the meed of chivalrous self-devotion in 
every honourable life service, was not denied him,— 
probably few savants of modern times have lived to 
reap a richer harvest of recognition. But of him, as 
of every great pioneer of science, it may justly be 
said, “ his works do follow him,” and long after the 
experiments, theories, and writings associated with 
his name have lapsed into obscurity, the impulse 
which he gave to chemical investigation will be felt 
for good. In a preeminent degree he was, what the 
first of living French chemists designated him—“ a 
master of scientific initiative ”; and even when his 
generalizations turned out to be premature, or when 
his inductions proved incomplete, he never forfeited 
the admiration of the scientific world for the fertility 
of resource which had suggested them, or for the 
candour with which he brought them into the 
critical foreground. Even when the judgment of 
contemporary savants was adverse, not a few of them 
have been known to share the sentiment of Cicero— 
Errare malo cum Platone quam cum istis vera 
sent ire. 
“ The verdict of foreigners,” says Madame de 
Stael, “ is that of a contemporaneous posterity 
and, if the saying be true, the reputation of Liebig, 
when measured by the standard of English apprecia¬ 
tion, will be great indeed. Who of us, in 
school-boy days, has not revelled in the ‘Familiar 
Letters on Chemistry,’ and passed to the severer 
enjoyment of those beautiful researches by which 
he made science the handmaid of husbandry and the 
prescriber of food in its universal application to 
human wants ? Even in the very process of enrich¬ 
ing our knowledge with his pregnant teaching 
the intellectual faculties were stimulated and 
strengthened by the severe, yet simple, logic by 
which his conclusions were reached ; and in studying, 
for example, his treatises on agriculture, we reaped a 
mental harvest in the exercise, and felt the whole¬ 
some discipline of what Bacon calls ‘ the Georgies of 
the mind.’ But, passing from personal to public 
obligations, what Englishman will withhold his tri¬ 
bute of gratitude to the chemist who first taught how 
crops grow and how the exhausted earth may be re¬ 
invigorated ; what food is best adapted for the frigid, 
the temperate, or the torrid zones ; what principles 
control the development and renewal of the tissues ; 
how life may be most agreeably prolonged, and death 
most effectually kept at bay ? 
With the votaries of our own profession in par¬ 
ticular Liebig’s must ever be an honoured name. 
His contributions to pharmacy, though eclipsed by 
the more brilliant additions he has made to physi¬ 
ological and agricultural chemistry, are none the less 
substantial and enduring. It was in the pharmacist’s 
laboratory that he made his first researches; it was 
under pharmaceutical auspices that his scientific 
genius received its earliest nurture. To his dying 
day he never forgot his young associations ; and all 
throughout his career he showed the keenest interest 
in the progress and in the perfecting of pharma¬ 
ceutical science. In conjunction with his relative 
Geiger he produced a handbook of pharmacy which 
marks an epoch in the history of the art, and in¬ 
directly, by analyses and experiments innumerable, 
he gave an impulse to pharmaceutic method and 
manipulation which will never cease to be felt. But 
in this, as in so many other fields, the bequest of his 
example is his most precious donation to posterity ; 
his “simplicity” and “trustworthiness” will be 
cherished as a Krrjpa etc net, as a heritage lor ever. 
Chemistry may be revolutionized ; her processes may 
be indefinitely improved upon ; her findings reach 
a profundity and comprehensiveness undreamt of in 
contemporary philosophy. But among the votaries 
to whom she is indebted for the new life on which 
she appears to be entering, and who have sacrificed 
their energies to her welfare, she will ever cherish, 
with a fondness reserved for few, the name of Justus 
von Liebig. 
