Berzelius, JOHAN JAKOB, BARON, one of the founders of the science of chemistry, was born at a farm in East Gothland, Sweden, August 29, 1779. While studying for the medical profession at the university of Upsala, he was more attracted by the preparatory studies in science, especially chemistry. After being some time employed in medical practice and lecturing, he was appointed (1806) lecturer on chemistry in the Military Academy of Stockholm, and, in the following year, professor of Medicine and Pharmacy. He was shortly after chosen president of the Stockholm Academy of Sciences; and from 1818 till his death, August 7, 1848, held the office of perpetual secretary. The king raised him to the rank of baron; other honours from learned societies were conferred on him, including the London Royal Society's gold medal. The field of his activity lay in his laboratory, where he acquired a name of which his country, where he ranks in science second only to Linnæus, is justly proud. The science of chemistry, as at present organised, rests in great measure upon the discoveries and views of Berzelius, although in not a few points he has been controverted or found wrong. His multiplied and accurate analyses established the laws of combination on an incontrovertible basis; and to him we owe the system of chemical symbols. He discovered the elements selenium, thorium, and cerium, and first exhibited calcium, barium, strontium, columbium or tantalum, silicium, and zirconium, in the metallic form. The multitude and accuracy of his researches in every branch of chemical inquiry, as well as in physics and physiology, make it difficult to conceive how one man could have accomplished so much. Of his numerous writings, the most important is his Lärebok i Kemiën (Text-book of Chemistry, 3 vols. Stock. 1808-18), which afterwards passed through five large editions, on each occasion being almost wholly rewritten, and which was translated into every European language. His essay On the use of the Blowpipe exhausts the subject, and in that On the Division of Salts through Galvanism he propounds the electro-chemical theory, the title to which is divided between himself and Davy; while his Annual Reports on the Progress of Physics, Chemistry, and Mineralogy, undertaken at the request of the Academy of Sciences in 1820, proved very valuable to science.