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home, then he entered Hohe Karlsschule (Duke Carl's Academy) in Stuttgart in
1782, after 4 years of pre-university study. From 1786-1788, he studied in the
Academy's philosophical section and from 1788-1793 in its medical section.
From the mid-1780's, natural history was his chief enthusiasm.
It has been said that once introduced to chemistry, it became his favourite
science. His MD thesis in 1793 was on animal electricity. He then went to
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen to study obstetrics and also worked in J.F.
Gmelin's laboratory. From 1795, he spent 2 years as personal physician to Count
F. Reventlow, later his patron as Curator at the Universität Kiel. After a year in
private practice in Heidenheim, he was then appointed as Assistant Professor in
the Medical Faculty at Universität Kiel. In 1801, he went to Paris at government
expense to prepare for the chair of chemistry, whilst in Paris, he met the lead-
ing French chemists of the day. From 1802-1846, he held the chair of chemis-
try and physics in the medical faculty. He was an extremely productive scientist
dealing with topics in voltaic electricity, physics, botany and pharmacy, general
and preparative chemistry, but above all, in analytical chemistry [
146
]. In addi-
tion to his numerous research papers and textbooks, Pfaff made a major and
influential contribution to analytical chemistry by writing the first general and
comprehensive two volume textbook,
Handbuch der analytischen Chemie für
Staatsärzte, Apotheker, Oekonomen und Bergwerks Kundige
[
147
]. Szabadv￡ry
describes the contents and their significance in some detail, noting in particular,
the lengthy section on the preparation of reagents, tests for their purity, detailed
discussion of qualitative and quantitative gravimetric reactions of metals, and the
topic concludes with the analysis of gases and organic substances [
148
]. In view of
Pfaff's considerable contributions, it is surprising that he only merited
en
-
passant
mentions by Partington and in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
Friedrich S
tromeyer
(born 2 August 1776, Göttingen; died 18 August 1835,
Göttingen) was the son of J.F. Stromeyer, Professor of Medicine at the Georg-
August-Universität Göttingen [
149
,
150
]. He studied pharmacy at the university
and so was influenced by J.F. Gmelin. He continued his studies in Paris with
L.N. Vauquelin who was an exceptionally able analyst. Returning to Göttingen
[
24
X], he graduated in medicine in 1800 (see Fig.
2.17
for his portrait). He then
made a scientific tour and met many distinguished chemists; their accomplish-
ments decided him to turn from medicine to chemistry. In 1802, he habilitated
as
Privatdozent
(Assistant Professor) in pharmacy and chemistry. He made such
progress that after Gmelin's death he was named extraordinary professor in 1805,
the next year, the director of the chemical laboratory and in 1810 full professor.
He wrote several textbooks on chemistry and published a considerable number of
important investigations [
151
] most of which were analytical in nature, including
the analysis of minerals and the use of starch to detect free iodine. In 1817, he dis-
covered cadmium. Importantly, Stromeyer predated Liebig in the establishment, in
1805, of laboratory instruction for undergraduate students in chemistry [
149
].
Joseph F
raunhofer
(born 6 March 1787, Straubing, Lower Bavaria; died 7 June
1826, Munich) although not a chemist, is worthy of mention herein, as exemplifying
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