Charles Adolphe Würtz

Charles Adolphe Würtz , born with Strasbourg the November 26th 1817 and died in Paris the May 12th 1884, is a chemist French of Alsatian origin .

Biography

Wurtz was born with Strasbourg in Alsace, and lived its childhood with Wolfisheim where his/her father was Pasteur Luthérien.

When it had left the Protestant Gymnase of Strasbourg, in 1834, his/her father allowed him to study medicine rather than theology. He devoted himself especially to the chemical side of his profession and with such a success that, in 1839, he was named chief of work of chemistry at the Medical college of Strasbourg.

After its doctorate, passed in 1843 with a thesis on the Albumin and the Fibrin, he studied during one year with Giessen under the direction of Justus von Liebig and went then to Paris, where he worked at the private laboratory of Jean-Baptiste Dumas. In 1845 he became the assistant of this last at the Medical school and, four years later, started to give courses of organic chemistry to its place. Its laboratory at the Medical school was very poor and for better working it had to open with him street Garancière of it, in 1850; but a little later the house was sold and the laboratory had to be given up.

In 1850, it was named chemistry teacher at the new agronomic Institute of Versailles, but the Institute was removed in 1852. The following year, the pulpit of organic chemistry at the medical college became vacant by the resignation of Dumas and the pulpit of inorganic chemistry and toxicology by that of Mathieu Orfila. Both were joined together and Wurtz named at the new station.

In 1866 it accepted the load of senior of the medical college. At this station, he worked to obtain the rearrangement and the rebuilding of the buildings devoted to the scientific instruction, while insisting on the fact that, to have laboratories of teaching correctly equipped, France was far behind the Germany (see his Les report/ratio High practical Studies in the universities allemandes, 1870). He was also director of studies within the 2nd section of the practical Ecole of the high studies.

In 1875, it resigned of its post of senior but accepted the honorary title of senior. He was the first holder of the pulpit of organic chemistry, which he had encouraged the government to create with the Sorbonne; but it had great difficulties in obtain a suitable laboratory, which finally was not created before its death, to Paris.

Wurtz was member honorary almost all scientific companies of Europe. It was one of the founders of the chemical Company of Paris (1858), became its first secretary and exerted three times the president's functions. In 1880 he was vice-president and in 1881 president of the Academy of Science, where he had entered in 1867, succeeding Theophilus-Jules Pelouze. He became irremovable senator in 1881.

Career

He was Doyen of the Medical college of Paris of 1866 with 1875, irremovable Senator in 1881, member of the Académie of medicine (1856), member of the Academy of Science (1867) and prize winner of the Faraday Lectureship of the Royal society off chemistry in 1879.

Charles Adolphe Würtz is known for his work on:

compounds related on the Ammonia and the glycol
the Aldol, a colorless Aldehyde
theories on the provision of the atoms in the organic compounds

He is the discoverer, with the German chemist Rudolf Fittig, of the synthesis Würtz-Fittig, a method of combination of the halogenous organic compounds.

Works

Treated elementary of medical chemistry (2 volumes, 1864-1865),
Dictionary of chemistry pure and applied (5 volumes, 1868-1879, followed by a supplement in 2 volumes, 1880-1886)
the atomic Theory (1879)
Treated biological chemistry (1885)

He was one of the writer of the Annales of chemistry and physics .

Homages

He belongs to the erudite soixante-douze whose name is registered on the Eiffel Tower.

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