Liebig

Liebig, Justus, Baron von (1803-73), the great German chemist, was born at Darmstadt, where his father was a drysalter. He studied chemistry at Bonn and Erlangen, and took the degree of Ph.D. at the latter, after which he was sent to Paris at the expense of the Grand Duke of Hesse. Here he became the pupil of Gay-Lussac and theqirotege of A. von Humboldt. The influence of the latter obtained for him in 1824 a professorship of chemistry at Giessen. Liebig made Giessen the first school of chemistry in Europe. In his laboratory, the first of its kind, were trained most of the great chemists of the century. In 1845 he was created Freiherr, or Hereditary Baron, and in 1852 left Giessen for Munich. Here, besides being Professor of Chemistry, he was after 1860 President of the Academy of Sciences. He was the founder of agricultural chemistry, made important contributions to animal physiology, and in pure organic chemistry determined the constituents of acids, elicited for the first time chloral and chloroform, and discovered the compound aldehyde.