Friedrich Wöhler and the Göttingen School of Chemistry - A Meeting to Mark the Bicentenary of Wöhler's Birth.

25 May 2000, Conference Room of the Science Museum and Imperial College Library

Dr Ernst Homburg's paper was entitled "Friedrich Stromeyer and the early days of the Göttingen laboratory". Stromeyer (1776-1835) was Wöhler's predecessor at Göttingen. First appointed 'substitute' professor of chemistry and pharmacy in 1805, within a year he founded his teaching laboratory, and the reputation thus gained helped him to obtain a permanent appointment to the chemistry chair in 1810. Stromeyer's laboratory became Germany's most important university-based training centre in chemistry. On four days each week, between 10 and 12 a.m., Stromeyer gave a laboratory course in which students were trained in the basic operations of chemical analysis. On two days his laboratory also was open to students from 2 to 6 p.m. to do their own analytical investigations. A peculiar feature was that on Fridays Stromeyer distributed samples of unknown minerals among his students, which they had to investigate at home, the results being discussed on Monday. From 1817 he gave his practical course twice every semester, to cope with growing student numbers. In 1825, 94 students were working in his laboratory, among them 33 pharmacy students, the rest being mainly students of medicine. Of all German chemistry professors appointed between 1810 and 1840, about twenty received their training under Stromeyer (among them L. Gmelin, E. Mitscherlich and R. Bunsen). Stromeyer's laboratory was by far the most important chemistry school of the period. Stromeyer himself had considerable ability as an analytical chemist, and is known as the discoverer of the element cadmium. The fact that the majority of his students were following courses in medicine or pharmacy helps us to understand why the fame Stromeyer had among his contemporaries was not communicated to later generations, historians of chemistry included.

Dr Robin Keen gave a paper outlining Wöhler's life and career. Friedrich Wöhler was born in 1800 at Escherheim, near Frankfurt-am-Main. At school he excelled in Latin, and was sound in Mathematics, but was taught no Science: By the age of eighteen he was doing advanced practical chemistry in the household kitchen, and throughout his life he loved practical work. From Marburg University (1820) he went to Heidelberg (1821) where L. Gmelin encouraged him in laboratory work while he graduated in Medicine (1823). A year working with Berzelius in Stockholm followed. Learning Swedish quickly, he became translator of all Berzelius's work into German. This took up a great deal of time and energy. He became the focus of a network of Berzelius's students, including Mitscherlich and H. Rose. His friendship with Liebig followed a controversy over the analytical results for fulminic and cyanic acids (1828). Liebig had wider and different connections but until the latter's death in 1878 he and Wöhler corresponded frequently, exchanging details of work in progress, chemical news and gossip. In 1832 he moved to Kassel, but transferred to Göttingen in 1835. Like Stromeyer he kept chemistry at Göttingen to the fore, expanding research facilities and student numbers. His fame attracted many foreign students and he continued to lecture till at least 1878 and published a final paper in 1880. Between 1820 and 1880 he published 281 papers on a huge range of topics; after 1850 these were largely inorganic. The correspondence with Berzelius was published in 1901; that with Liebig is eagerly awaited. Many contemporaries remark on Wohler's integrity, modesty, kindness, and willingness to help individual students. He had many friends and no enemies. He died in 1882 at Gottingen. He was married twice and had six children.

Dr Peter Ramberg's paper was entitled "Wöhler's Urea Synthesis and Organic Chemistry: A Reconsideration". Wöhler's 1828 preparation of urea has become a classic Experimentum Crucis in the mythology of organic chemistry. It is portrayed as one of the most famous experiments in organic chemistry, refuting the concept of a vital force, and marking when organic chemistry became a science. In his paper, Ramberg looked at the origins of the Wöhler Myth during the first half of the nineteenth century. He outlined the dissemination of the Myth into chemical lectures and textbooks from the late nineteenth century to the present, including modern American texts. Finally, he suggested some reasons for the continued propagation of the Wöhler Myth, including the modern economics of textbook production and the creation and maintenance of a disciplinary identity for organic chemistry. An elaborated version of the paper appears in Ambix, 47 (2000), 170-95.

Prof. Christoph Meinel's paper was entitled "Communication and Knowledge Production: The Liebig-Wöhler Correspondence". Meinel gave an overview of the voluminous correspondence between Liebig and Wöhler, and of his own project currently in hand to edit it for publication. The eventual appearance of this correspondence will add very considerably to our understanding of one of the most important partnerships in the history of chemistry.

John Hudson, Hon Secretary, SHAC
Anglia Polytechnic University