Abstract
A HUNDRED years ago Europe was still plunged in the misery of war. Almost every country had suffered the bitter experience of seeing the devastation caused by the passage of contending armies, the death and suffering of thousands of fighting men, and the want and desolation spread over still greater numbers of a helpless population. Amid all the wretchedness of the time, insecurity of property, dearness of food, frequent changes of governments, and every condition which would appear to be unfavourable, the study of nature steadily went on. France, still staggering from the fierce shocks of the revolutionary period, had still many distinguished men of science, Laplace, Berthollet, Lamarck, Cuvier, while the memory of Lavoisier was fresh and green, and Gay-Lussac, Dulong, Arago, and Chevreul were among the coming men. England, still engaged in the struggle with Napoleon, possessed Humphry Davy, Rumford, and Dalton, and Herschel among the astronomers. Henry Cavendish was still living, though an old man, and Priestley was but lately dead. In Germany, Goethe might be counted among the votaries of science, and Prussia had sent forth Humboldt to survey the world, while in Italy, Volta was busy in the study of electricity, and Avogadro, little noticed by the world, was meditating on the properties of gases and preparing for the enunciation of the great principle which is now associated with his name, though it took the chemical world half a century to recognise it. One other name must not be forgotten, and that is Berzelius, the Swede, then young, and preparing, by his eager activity in research, for that great position of almost undisputed authority in the chemical world, which he filled for nearly forty years.
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Liebig and His Influence on the Progress of Modern Chemistry 1 . Nature 87, 263–268 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/087263b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/087263b0