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FRIEDRICH WOeHLER.


At the age of eighty-two years, and full of honor, after a life actively
devoted to scientific work of the highest and most accurate kind, which
has contributed more than that of any other contemporary to establish
the principles on which an exact science like chemistry is founded, the
illustrious Woehler has gone to his rest.

After he had worked for some time with Berzelius in Sweden, he taught
chemistry from 1825 to 1831 at the Polytechnic School in Berlin; then
till 1836 he was stationed at the Higher Polytechnic School at Cassel,
and then he became Ordinary Professor of Chemistry in the University of
Goettingen, where he remained till his death. He was born, July 31, 1800,
at Eschersheim, near Frankfort-on-the-Main.

Until the year 1828 it was believed that organic substances could only
be formed under the influence of the vital force in the bodies of
animals and plants. It was Woehler who proved by the artificial
preparation of urea from inorganic materials that this view could not be
maintained. This discovery has always been considered as one of the most
important contributions to our scientific knowledge. By showing that
ammonium cyanate can become urea by an internal arrangement of its
atoms, without gaining or losing in weight, Woehler furnished one of the
first and best examples of isomerism, which helped to demolish the old