Reichenbach

Reichenbach, KARL, BARON VON, naturalist and technologist, was born at Stuttgart, 12th February 1788, and educated at Tübingen. After a short political imprisonment at the instigation of the French authorities, he studied the industrial arts, and in 1821, in connection with the Count of Salm, he commenced a number of manufactories of different kinds at Blansko in Moravia, which he managed with great success, retiring with a fortune. He devoted much study to the compound products of the distillation of organic substances, and he succeeded in bringing to light a number of compounds of carbon and hydrogen not previously known; among these were creasote (1833) and paraffin. Studying with enthusiasm the subject of animal magnetism, he discovered, as he thought, a new force in nature, which he called Od (q.v.), and conceived to be intermediate between electricity, magnetism, heat, and light, and recognisable only by the nerves of sensitive persons. His chief works are Geologische Mittheilungen aus Mähren (1834), Untersuchungen über die Dynamide des Magnetismus (1847-49), several works on 'odie force' (1852-58), Aphorismen (1866), Die Odische Lohe (1867). Several of his works have been translated. He died at Leipzig, January 19, 1869. See biographical works by Schrötter (1869) and Fechner (1876).