chose--for he never considered that he had really discovered any
substance until he had made it, decomposed it, and made it again.

His experiments on Prussian blue are most interesting, not only
because of the enormous amount of work involved and the skill he
displayed in his experiments, but because all the time the
chemist was handling, smelling, and even tasting a compound of
one of the most deadly poisons, ignorant of the fact that the
substance was a dangerous one to handle. His escape from injury
seems almost miraculous; for his experiments, which were most
elaborate, extended over a considerable period of time, during
which he seems to have handled this chemical with impunity.

While only forty years of age and just at the zenith of his fame,
Scheele was stricken by a fatal illness, probably induced by his
ceaseless labor and exposure. It is gratifying to know, however,
that during the last eight or nine years of his life he had been
less bound down by pecuniary difficulties than before, as Bergman
had obtained for him an annual grant from the Academy. But it
was characteristic of the man that, while devoting one-sixth of
the amount of this grant to his personal wants, the remaining
five-sixths was devoted to the expense of his experiments.


LAVOISIER AND THE FOUNDATION OF MODERN CHEMISTRY

The time was ripe for formulating the correct theory of chemical
composition: it needed but the master hand to mould the materials
into the proper shape. The discoveries in chemistry during the
eighteenth century had been far-reaching and revolutionary in