BERZELIUS, JNS JACOB

born Aug. 20, 1779, near Linkping, Swed. died Aug. 7, 1848, Stockholm Swedish scientist, one of the founders of modern chemistry. He is especially noted for his determination of atomic weights, the development of modern chemical symbols, his electrochemical theory, the discovery and isolation of several elements, the development of classical analytical techniques, and his investigation of isomerism and catalysis, which were both given their names by him. He was a strict empiricist and insisted that any new theory be consistent with the sum of chemical knowledge. As a boy Berzelius developed an interest in chemistry. Except for his fine performance in physics, however, he nearly failed in his medical studies at Uppsala, but he did receive an M.D. degree (1802) and became assistant professor of medicine, botany, and pharmacy at Stockholm. A full professor by 1807, he was elected to the Stockholm Royal Academy of Science the following year and became permanent secretary in 1818. Professor of chemistry at the Royal Caroline Medico-Chirurgical Institute in Stockholm (181532), he was made a baron by Charles XIV in 1835. About 1807 Berzelius began his analysis of the composition of chemical compounds. Working in his spare time and with meagre kitchen laboratory facilities and techniques of his own improvisation and development, he studied about 2,000 compounds over a 10-year period. He used oxygen as the basis of reference for the atomic weights of other elements and was guided by the law of multiple proportions, atomic theory, the principles of isomorphism, and Gay-Lussac's law of combining volumes. His resulting table of combining proportions and atomic weights, published in 1818 and revised in 1826, attained a remarkable degree of accuracy. In the meantime Berzelius had begun experiments on the electrolysis of various solutions. This work led to his dualistic electrochemical theory that compounds are made up of two electrically different (positively and negatively charged) components. In attempting to extend his hypothesis to include organic as well as inorganic compounds, he contributed to the founding of radical theory. Berzelius discovered the elements cerium (1803), selenium (1817), and thorium (1828). He isolated silicon (1823), zirconium (1824), and titanium (1825); classified minerals on a chemical basis; and made detailed studies of the compounds of tellurium, vanadium, molybdenum, tungsten, uranium, and other elements. Sometimes called the father of gravimetric analysis, he introduced the use of the water bath, desiccator, wash bottle, filter paper, rubber tubing, and improved blowpipe technique. He published more than 250 original papers, mostly in Swedish, in the Transactions of the Stockholm Academy. His progress reports on chemistry and physics and his textbook of chemistry, which went through five editions and was translated into German and French, greatly influenced the development of chemistry in his time.