Gerhardt, KARL FRIEDRICH

Gerhardt, KARL FRIEDRICH, chemist, born at Strasburg, 21st August 1816, at fifteen was sent to the Polytechnic School of Carlsruhe, and afterwards studied chemistry at Leipzig, and under Liebig at Giessen. In 1838 he arrived in Paris, where he lectured on chemistry, and where with his friend Cahours he commenced his researches on the essential oils. In 1844 he was appointed professor of Chemistry at Montpellier. About this time he published his Précis de Chimie Organique, in which he sketches the idea of 'Homologous and Heterologous Series.' In 1845-48, in association with Laurent, he published the Comptes rendus des Travaux de Chimie. In 1848 he resigned his chair and returned to Paris in order to follow out unin- terruptedly his special investigations; and in that city he established, between the years 1849 and 1855, in successive memoirs, his views of series and the theory of types with which his name is associated in the history of chemistry. It was there, also, that he gave to the scientific world his remarkable researches upon the anhydrous acids and the oxides. In 1855 he became professor of Chemistry at Strasburg. All his ideas and his discoveries are embodied in his Traité de Chimie Organique (4 vols. 1853-56). He had hardly completed the correction of the last proof of this great work, when, after an illness of only two days, he died on 19th August 1856. See the Life by his friend Cahours.