Harmon Northrop Morse
| Harmon Northrop Morse | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 15, 1848 Cambridge, Vermont |
| Died |
September 8, 1920 (aged 71) Chebeague, Maine |
| Nationality | American |
| Institutions | Johns Hopkins University |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen |
| Known for | synthesis of paracetamol |
Harmon Northrop Morse (October 15, 1848 – September 8, 1920) was an American chemist. Today he is known as the first to have synthesized paracetamol, but this substance only became widely used as a drug decades after Morse's death. In the first half of the 20th century he was best known for his study of osmotic pressure, for which he was awarded the Avogadro Medal in 1916. The Morse equation for estimating osmotic pressure is named after him.
Harmon Northrop Morse was a son of John Morse, who came from England in 1639 and settled in New Haven. His father, Harmon Morse, was a puritan farmer, who considered all forms of recreation objectionable. Northrop's mother died at a young age, leaving behind Northrop, his brother Anson and his sister Delia.
Thanks to an endowment left by his grandmother, Northrop Morse studied chemistry at Amherst College, which he entered in 1869 and graduated in 1873. He continued his studies in Germany, and obtained a PhD in chemistry with a minor in mineralogy from the University of Göttingen in 1875. During Morse's time there, Friedrich Wöhler had officially retired from active service, and Morse's thesis adviser, and head of the Laboratory, was Hans Hübner. Nevertheless, Wöhler occasionally spent part of his time in the laboratory and a few favored students, generally Americans, were given the privilege of working with him. Hübner was an organic chemist, so Morse's initial work was in that area, but later Morse would work in what is now known as physical chemistry.
Morse returned to the United States in 1875, and was given an assistantship at Amherst. There he worked for a year under Harris and Emerson. When Johns Hopkins University opened in 1876, Morse moved there as an associate of Ira Remsen, thanks in part to a letter of recommendation from Emerson. Remsen and Morse started the chemistry laboratory at Johns Hopkins together, and Morse's experience from Germany proved very valuable, as the American chemistry school was less developed at the time. Morse officially became an associate professor in 1883, a full professor of inorganic and analytical chemistry in 1892, and director of the chemical laboratory in 1908. He retired in 1916.
...
Wikipedia