Gmelin, LEOPOLD

Gmelin, LEOPOLD, a German chemist, was born at Göttingen, 2d August 1788, and died at Heidelberg, 13th April 1853. Having studied medicine and chemistry at Göttingen, Tübingen, and Vienna, he began to teach chemistry at Heidelberg in 1813. Four years later he was made professor of Medicine and Chemistry, and held that chair until 1850. His great work is an excellent dictionary of chemistry, entitled Handbuch der Chemie (1817-19). Besides this he wrote, along with Tiedemann, a book on digestion (1826-27), and another on the method by which the food-products pass into the blood (1820). The Handbuch was translated into English and enlarged by Watts (1848-59).—His grand-uncle, JOHANN GEORG GMELIN, born at Tübingen, 10th August 1709, professor of Chemistry and Natural History at St Petersburg from 1731, and Botany and Chemistry at Tübingen from 1749, died there 20th May 1755. He spent ten years (1733-43) of his life travelling in Siberia, making observations on the botany, and wrote Flora Sibirica (1748-49) and Reisen durch Sibirien (4 vols. 1751-52).—His nephew, SAMUEL GOTTLIEB (1744-74), became professor of Botany at St Petersburg (1767), studied the botany of the southern portions of Russia, and wrote Historia Fucorum (1768).—Another nephew, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1748-1804), father of Leopold, wrote a botanical dictionary, Onomatologia Botanica Completa (9 vols. 1771-77).