Johann Christian Wiegleb

Johann Christian Wiegleb

Johann Christian Wiegleb (line engraving)
Born (1732-12-21)21 December 1732
Langensalza, Electorate of Saxony
Died 16 January 1800(1800-01-16) (aged 67)
Langensalza, Electorate of Saxony (now Bad Langensalza, Germany)
Residence Holy Roman Empire
Nationality German
Fields Chemist
Doctoral advisor Ernst Gottfried Baldinger
Doctoral students Johann Friedrich August Göttling, Sigismund Friedrich Hermbstädt

Johann Christian Wiegleb (December 21, 1732 – January 16, 1800) was a notable German druggist and early innovator of chemistry as a science.

Life

Wiegleb, the son of a lawyer, visited the school in Langensalza.[1] From 1748 to 1754 he served as an apprentice-apothecary in Dresden. Subsequently, from 1754 to 1755 he worked as an assistant in an apothecary in Quedlinburg.[2] In 1759 he established his own apothecary in his hometown of Langensalza.[3] He directed that apothecary until 1796. Furthermore, he was a senator and later treasurer of Langensalza.[1]

Wiegleb was an influential scientist in the Age of Enlightenment. He possessed a wide knowledge about history, philosophy and different languages. He was the author, publisher and translator of many works in the field of chemistry. His numerous studies on the chemical nature of minerals were usually published in Lorenz von Crell’s Chemische Annalen.[4] His work on general chemistry was translated into English and published as "A general system of chemistry : theoretical and practical. digested and arranged, with a particular view to its application to the arts. taken chiefly from the German of M. Wiegleb" (by C.R. Hopson, M.D. 1789).[5] Wiegleb was a member of the Kurmainzische Academy of useful sciences and the Leopoldina. He made a name for himself as a chemist and a manufacturer of chemical products. In 1779 he founded a private institution for the training of druggists in Langensalza.[6] That chemical-pharmaceutical institution was the first institution of its kind in Germany. It prepared the way for an academic education of druggists. Wiegleb was notably the teacher of Sigismund Friedrich Hermbstädt and Johann Friedrich August Göttling. They founded also chemical-pharmaceutical institutes after the model of Wiegleb.[7]

The name of Wiegleb is associated with the discovery of oxalic acid in 1779. It turned out that it was identical with sugar acid, which was discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1784.[1] Wiegleb analyzed minerals, the formation of saltpetre on walls and the formation of silicic acid from the reaction of hydrofluoric acid and glass. He conducted studies of alkaline salts in plants, on the combustion of chalk and argued against the possibility of transmutation of elements. Particularly against the transformation of metals into gold using alchemical methods. At the end of his life he became a follower of the phlogiston theory.

Honours

1776 accommodation into Leopoldina

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wolfgang-Hagen Heim, Holm-Dietmar Schwarz: Deutsche Apotheker-Biographie. Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart 1978, (Veröffentlichungen der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Pharmazie e.V. ; N.F., Bd. 46, Bd. II, M-Z), ISBN 978-3-8047-0530-2, S. 743.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang-Hagen Heim, Holm-Dietmar Schwarz: Deutsche Apotheker-Biographie Ergänzungsband II. Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart 1997, (Veröffentlichungen der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Pharmazie e.V. ; N.F., Bd. 60), ISBN 3-8047-1565-6, S. 380.
  3. ↑ Genealogy Database Entry by Vera V. Mainz and Gregory S. Girolami 1998
  4. ↑ ADB:Wiegleb, Johann Christian, Wikisource @ Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie
  5. ↑ OCLC WorldCat A general system of chemistry, etc.
  6. ↑ Chemistry Connections Biography of Johann Christian Wiegleb
  7. ↑ Biography of Johann Christian Wiegleb. Website of the town Bad Langensalza. recalled on February 2nd 2015.

Bibliography

External links

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