Friedrich Stromeyer and the history of chemical laboratory instruction

Abstract

There is a widespread, though erroneous belief that Justus Liebig founded chemical laboratory instruction when he opened a course of this kind at the University of Giessen in 1824.

Origins of Biogeography

“…Fredrich Stromeyer (1776-1835), later famous for discovering cadmium, completed his medical degree at the University of Göttingen in 1800 on plant geography under the famous botanist Johann Friedrich Gmelin (Beer 1999;Lockemann and Oesper 1953). Stromeyer's dissertation was published as Historiae Vegetablium Geographiae Specimen, namely "a catalog of writings to be considered as sources of the Geographic History of Vegetables, to briefly add information about those things that are contained by them and pertain to our scope, and to say a word about their merit and worth" (Stromeyer 1800, p. 19, Fig.…”

“…Stromeyer referred to his thesis as his "Specimen" (seeBeer 1999).5 For a detailed genealogy of Stromeyer see vonWilcke (1967). Various biographies of his career are covered byBeer (1999Beer ( , 2006,Lockemann and Oesper (1953),Thomson (1830), and shorter pieces byAsimov (1972).…”

The philosophy of laboratory instruction

“…We can, for example, go into the chemical education literature to trace the historical development of laboratory experimentation for teaching and search out the studies that have been made on the value of laboratory work (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11). We can, for example, go into the chemical education literature to trace the historical development of laboratory experimentation for teaching and search out the studies that have been made on the value of laboratory work (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11).…”

Bunsen the Geochemist: Icelandic Volcanism, Geyser Theory, and Gas, Rock and Mineral Analyses

“…While Bunsensname is nowadays universally well-known thanks to his founding,with Gustav Kirchhoff,ofthe field of spectroscopy (for which his burner,d eveloped with Peter Desaga and Henry Roscoe,was used as asource of heat;see the SI for details and references) and although he was wellknown in both organic and analytical chemistry in the early 1840s due to his seminal work on dimethylarsenic (cacodyl) and gas analysis,h is heart belonged to geology.H eh ad studied chemistry,p hysics,m athematics,g eology and mineralogy in Gçttingen under Stromeyer, [3] an analytical chemist and mineralogist with an interest in arsenic,and he obtained his doctorate in chemistry and physics for ad issertation, Enumeratio ac descriptio hygrometrorum, quae inde aS aussurii temporibus proposita sunt,w hich at the same time was the successful entry for ap rize competition. [4] It was to be typical of his future work, which would be more about apparatus and measurement than chemistry.H er etained Figure 1.…”