Etienne Henry Sainte-Claire Deville

Abstract

WE regret to record a serious loss to French chemistry in the death of the celebrated professor, Sainte-Claire Deville, which occurred July I, at Boulogne-sur-Seine. Étienne Henry Sainte-Claire Deville was born March 11, 1818, on the island of St. Thomas, in the Antilles, and was of Creole origin. Like most of the youth in the French colonies, he was sent to Paris to undertake a course of study. Of his two brothers who also proceeded to France to enter upon active careers, one, the late Charles Sainte-Claire Deville, devoted himself likewise to science, and we have had occasion more than once to refer to his remarkable geological investigations in these pages. While the Creole element has rarely lacked in the artistic and literary circles of the French capital, we believe that the two brothers in question furnish the only notable instance in which science has profited from the highly imaginative and versatile Creole temperament. It is related of the young Henry that on completing his collegiate studies, he hesitated for a long time in making his choice between music and science. His decision was due in a great measure to the enthusiasm awakened at the time by the brilliant lectures and no less brilliant investigations of Jean Baptiste Dumas. Guided by the counsels of the latter, he equipped a laboratory, and commenced a series of investigations so fertile of results that in a short time he was ranked among the most promising,of the younger school of chemists. In 1844 he entered upon professorial duties in accepting the Chair of Chemistry in the Scientific Facultyof Besançon, where, notwithstanding his comparative youth, he was appointed dean of his faculty. In 1851 he was called upon to succeed Balard as Professor of Chemistry at the École Normale of Paris. Gladly exchanging the comparative obscurity of a provincial university town for the manifold advantages of a Parisian professorship, he devoted himself with such ardour to the duties of his new position that, after a short lapse of time, the laboratory of the École Normale became one of the central points of chemical investigation, not only in France but in all Europe. In 1854 he accepted, in addition to his usual duties, a lectureship at the Sorbonne, which, fourteen years later, was changed for a full professorship. His favourite field of activity remained, however, the École Normale, and it was with difficulty, some months since, that he felt himself called upon to relinquish active professorial duties in consequence of rapidly increasing feebleness.