Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/126

114 synthetic method into organic chemistry, and devised a system of processes by means of which we are able to create organic compounds by the direct combination of their constituent radicals.

was born in Paris, October 25, 1827. He was the son of a physician of some distinction, and while a student in one of the lyceums of Paris showed marked tastes for philosophical studies and chemical research, so that, when the time for the contest came, he easily won the honors in philosophy. Then, following his favorite pursuits, he occupied himself especially with studies of the acids and fatty bodies, and of fermentations. In 1851 he became attached to the CollégeCollège [sic] de France as preparator in the course of chemistry, in which position he was assistant to Balard. In 1854 he propounded his theory of polyatomic alcohols, and was in the same year made a Doctor in Science. In 1859 he was appointed a Professor in the Superior School of Pharmacy. In 1861 he received the Joecker prize from the Academy of Sciences for his experiments in the artificial production of chemical substances by synthesis. In 1864 he was made a Professor of Organic Chemistry in the College de France in a chair which had been created especially for him, in which he was instructed to advance his own ideas, and to treat in his lectures especially of his own discoveries.

M. Berthelot entered upon the researches in synthesis, which give him his strongest title to fame, in 1854. Berzelius had said that, although we may produce with inorganic bodies a few substances having a composition analogous to that of some organic ones, the imitation is too restricted to justify us in hoping that we shall be able to produce organic bodies in the same sense that we have frequently succeeded in confirming the analysis of inorganic bodies by performing the synthesis of them. Yet, when this was said, Wöhler had already performed the synthesis of urea; and a few other syntheses had been made, but they were so isolated, so insignificant, and so barren of fruit, that all attempts to constitute organic bodies by bringing together the elements of which they are composed were, as a rule, regarded as chimerical. The law and the manner of the formation of the organic matters which enter into the composition of the living being were unknown; the question whether those substances were chemical in their character, or depended for their existence and maintenance upon a peculiar vital force, had been started, but the discussion of it had not been seriously entered upon. M. Berthelot began to give his attention to the solution of this problem very early in his scientific career.

One of the first syntheses he performed was that of formic acid, and this was used as the basis of his further researches. Regarding this substance as formed by the union of water and carbonic oxide, he brought about a compound of that character through the intervention of potash, and secured the result he sought. Other syntheses followed