Charles-Adolphe Wurtz’s Followers (1)

Charles-Adolphe Wurtz

Born

in Wolfisheim, near Strasbourg, France

November 26, 1817

Died

May 10, 1894

Website

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles-Adolphe_W...

Genre

Science, Chemistry, Physics

Influences

Antoine Lavoisier, Charles Frédéric Gerhardt, Auguste Laurent, Marcell ...more

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Charles Adolphe Wurtz (26 November 1817 – 10 May 1884) was an Alsatian French chemist. He is best remembered for his decades-long advocacy for the atomic theory and for ideas about the structures of chemical compounds, against the skeptical opinions of chemists such as Marcellin Berthelot and Etienne Henri Sainte-Claire Deville. He is well known by organic chemists for the Wurtz reaction, to form carbon-carbon bonds by reacting alkyl halides with sodium, and for his discoveries of ethylamine, ethylene glycol, and the aldol reaction. Wurtz was also an influential writer and educator.

Adolphe Wurtz (he never used the name "Charles") was born at Wolfisheim, near Strasbourg. In 1834, his father allowed him to study medicine. He devoted himself s Charles Adolphe Wurtz (26 November 1817 – 10 May 1884) was an Alsatian French chemist. He is best remembered for his decades-long advocacy for the atomic theory and for ideas about the structures of chemical compounds, against the skeptical opinions of chemists such as Marcellin Berthelot and Etienne Henri Sainte-Claire Deville. He is well known by organic chemists for the Wurtz reaction, to form carbon-carbon bonds by reacting alkyl halides with sodium, and for his discoveries of ethylamine, ethylene glycol, and the aldol reaction. Wurtz was also an influential writer and educator.

Adolphe Wurtz (he never used the name "Charles") was born at Wolfisheim, near Strasbourg. In 1834, his father allowed him to study medicine. He devoted himself specially to the chemical side of his profession with such success that in 1839 he was appointed Chef des travaux chimiques at the Strasbourg faculty of medicine. For the summer semester of 1842 he studied under Justus von Liebig at the University of Giessen. After graduating from Strasbourg as M.D. in 1843, with a thesis on albumin and fibrin, he went to Paris, where he worked in Jean-Baptiste Dumas's private laboratory. In 1845, he became assistant to Dumas at the École de Médecine, and four years later began to give lectures on organic chemistry in his place. As there was no laboratory at his disposal at the Ecole de Médecine, he opened a private one in 1850 in the Rue Garanciere; but three years later the building was sold, and the laboratory had to be abandoned. In 1850, he received the professorship of chemistry at the new Institut National Agronomique at Versailles, but the Institution was abolished in 1852. In the following year the chair of "pharmacy and organic chemistry" at the faculty of medicine became vacant by the resignation of Dumas, and the chair of "medical chemistry" by the death of Mathieu Orfila. Both of these chairs were now abolished, and Wurtz was appointed to the newly defined post of "organic and mineral chemistry". (At the same time, a new chair devoted exclusively to pharmacy was awarded to Eugene Soubeiran). In 1866, Wurtz undertook the duties of dean of the faculty of medicine. In this position, he exerted himself to secure the rearrangement and reconstruction of the buildings devoted to scientific instruction, urging that in the provision of properly equipped teaching laboratories France was much behind Germany (see his report Les Hautes Etudes pratiques dans les universités allemandes, 1870).

In 1875, resigning the office of dean but retaining the title of honorary dean, he became the first occupant of a new chair of organic chemistry at the Sorbonne, which the government had established due to his influence. However, he had great difficulty in obtaining an adequate laboratory. The buildings of the new Sorbonne that ultimately provided modern scientific laboratories were not completed until 1894, ten years after his death.

Wurtz was an honorary member of almost every scientific society in Europe. He was the principal founder of the Paris Chemical Society (1858), was its first secretary and thrice served as its president. In 1880, he was vice-president and in 1881 president of the French Academy of Sciences, which he entered in 1867 in succession to Théophile-Jules Pelouze. In 1881, Wurtz was elected life senator. Wurtz's name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel tower.

Wurtz died in Paris in 1884, probably of complications due to diabetes, and was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery ...more

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Charles-Adolphe Wurtz’s books

Average rating: 0.0 · 0 ratings · 0 reviews · 46 distinct works

	Agenda du chimiste 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 25 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Atomic Theory 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2008 — 69 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Trait lmentaire De Chimie Mdicale 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dictionnaire De Chimie Pure Et Appliquée, Volume 2, Part 1... 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	An introduction to chemical philosophy According to the modern theories 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2013 — 29 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Eloge de Laurent Et de Gerhardt, Prononcé Le 13 Mars 1862, à la Séance Publique de La Société: Des Amis Des Sciences 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dictionnaire de Chimie Pure Et Appliquée T.1. A-F (Sciences) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dictionnaire de Chimie Pure Et Appliquée T. 3. T-Z (Sciences) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dictionnaire de Chimie Pure Et Appliquée T.5. H (Sciences) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dictionnaire de Chimie Pure Et Appliquée T.1-2. C-G (Sciences) by Charles-Adolphe Wurtz, Charles-Adolphe Wurtz 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Charles-Adolphe Wurtz (?)

“Both died, ignored by most; they neither sought nor found public favour, for high roads never lead there. Laurent and Gerhardt never left such roads, were never tempted to peruse those easy successes which, for strongly marked characters, offer neither allure nor gain. Their passion was for the search for truth; and, preferring their independence to their advancement, their convictions to their interests, they placed their love for science above that of their worldly goods; indeed above that for life itself, for death was the reward for their pains. Rare example of abnegation, sublime poverty that deserves the name nobility, glorious death that France must not forget!”
― Charles Adolphe Wurtz

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