The Wöhler Festival

Abstract

THE 31st of July was a festive day for Chemical Germany, and for the numerous admirers of the celebrated senior of German chemistry, Prof. Wöhler of Göttingen; not only as the seventy-fifth anniversary of his birth, but also as the supposed fiftieth anniversary of his entering upon his professional duties. In 1825 Dr. Wöhler became teacher of chemistry to the Berlin “Gewerbeschule;” in 1831 he exchanged this position for a similar one in Cassel, and from 1836 up to the present day he has been forming generations of chemists who flocked to Göttingen attracted by his fame. We need not remind our readers of the numerous discoveries of this great and genial man, of which the artificial formation of urea, the production of aluminium, his researches on cyanic and cyanuric acids, on boron and silicon, his joint researches with Liebig on uric acid and benzoylcompounds, and many others, are known to all chemists, and have opened new roads to science.