author
Claude-Louis Berthollet
1748–1822
A key figure in the birth of modern chemistry, this Savoyard-born scientist helped turn the subject into a more precise, practical science. He is especially remembered for work on chemical nomenclature, bleaching with chlorine compounds, and early ideas about how chemical reactions reach balance.
1 Audiobook
Memoria sobre a cultura da Urumbeba e sobre criação da Cochonilha
by Nicolas-Joseph Thiéry de Menonville, Claude-Louis Berthollet, José Mariano da Conceição Velloso
About the author
Born on December 9, 1748, in Talloires in Savoy, he studied at Chambéry and then at Turin, where he trained in medicine before moving to Paris. There he built a career in chemistry and became one of the leading scientific figures of late eighteenth-century France.
He worked closely with other major chemists of his era, including Antoine Lavoisier, and took part in creating a clearer system for naming chemical substances. He also made practical advances in industrial chemistry, especially in bleaching and dyeing, and his investigations into chemical reactions helped shape later thinking about chemical equilibrium and mass action.
His career reached beyond the laboratory. He was elected to the French Academy of Sciences, took part in public service during and after the French Revolution, and later became associated with the scientific circle at Arcueil. He died on November 6, 1822, leaving a reputation as one of the most important chemists of his generation.