Carl Wilhelm Scheele
| Carl Wilhelm Scheele | |
|---|---|
Carl Scheele
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| Born |
9 December 1742 Stralsund, Swedish Pomerania, today Germany |
| Died | 21 May 1786 (aged 43) Köping, Sweden |
| Nationality | German-Swedish |
| Fields | Chemistry |
| Known for | Discovered oxygen (independently), molybdenum, barium, chlorine, tungsten and more |
Carl Wilhelm Scheele (9 December 1742 – 21 May 1786) was a Swedish Pomeranian and pharmaceutical chemist. Isaac Asimov called him "hard-luck Scheele" because he made a number of chemical discoveries before others who are generally given the credit. For example, Scheele discovered oxygen (although Joseph Priestley published his findings first), and identified molybdenum, tungsten, barium, hydrogen, and chlorine before Humphry Davy, among others. Scheele discovered organic acids tartaric, oxalic, uric, lactic, and citric, as well as hydrofluoric, hydrocyanic, and arsenic acids. He preferred speaking German to Swedish his whole life, as German was commonly spoken among Swedish pharmacists.
Scheele was born in Stralsund, in western Pomerania, which at the time was a Swedish Dominion inside the Holy Roman Empire. Scheele's father Joachim (or Johann) Christian Scheele, was a grain dealer and brewer from a respected German family. His mother was Margaretha Eleanore Warnekros.
Friends of Scheele's parents taught him the art of reading prescriptions and the meaning of chemical and pharmaceutical signs. Then, in 1757, at age fourteen Carl was sent to Gothenburg as an apprentice pharmacist with another family friend and apothecary. (Martin Andreas Bauch). Scheele retained this position for eight years. During this time he ran experiments late into the night and read the works of Nicolas Lemery, Caspar Neumann, Johann von Löwenstern-Kunckel and Georg Ernst Stahl (the champion of the phlogiston theory). Much of Scheele's later theoretical speculations were based upon Stahl.
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