Philip Joseph Hartog

“ An immense amount of work was done on the river basins of England and Scotland, and the work has served as a foundation for subsequent investigations of problems still not satisfactorily solved. Frankland recognised the great superiority over other processes of intermittent downward filtration through land as a means of sewage purification. His investigations form the basis of the bacteriological process of purification now extensively employed. The work on water analysis finally absorbed nearly the whole of Frankland's time not devoted to teaching. ”

“ In 1785 he was appointed first professor of chemistry in the university of Dublin, and remained in this post till 1805. In 1785 he took an active part in founding the Royal Irish Academy, his name appearing in the charter, and he was for a long period secretary of this body. In 1786 he was appointed inspector of apothecaries, and in the exercise of his functions incurred some temporary unpopularity. In 1785 he also helped to found the Dublin General Dispensary. He now gave much time, thought, and money to medical and other charities in Dublin. ”

“ In 1872 Mond made the acquaintance of Ernest Solvay, a Belgian chemist, who had effected great improvements in a rival process to that of Leblanc, the ammonia-soda process which had been invented by Harrison Gray Dyer and John Hemming in 1838. Solvay had started a small factory at Couillet near Charleroi for working his process. Mond, with much searching of heart, invested his small capital derived from the sulphur recovery process, in purchasing the option to work Solvay's patents in England. ”

“ He early showed a liking for chemistry and science generally. At the age of seventeen he became clerk to a private banking firm in London, where he remained for five years, giving, however, all his leisure to scientific work. ”

“ He was apprenticed about 1840 to Stephen Ross, a chemist in Dheapside, Lancaster, with whom he worked fourteen hours a day. During his apprenticeship he learnt chemistry from Christopher Johnson and his son, Dr. James Johnson, who evicted a tenant from a cottage to turn it into a laboratory for Frankland and other lads. In 1845 Frankland went to the Museum of Practical Geology, London, to study under Dr. Lyon (later Baron) Playfair [q. v.] Here he made acquaintance with Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe, then Playfair's assistant, who, like Frankland, rose later to the front rank of chemists. ”

“ Although an acute critic both of Priestley and Lavoisier, he failed to grasp the distinction made by the latter chemist between ponderable matter and caloric, and hence his constructive theories, though ingenious, were unsound and sterile, and discredited his criticisms. ”

“ After studying at the Realachule and the polytechnic school at Caasel, Mond worked in 1855 under Hermann Kolbe at Marburg and went in 1856 to Heidelberg to work under Robert Wilhebn Bunsen. In 1859 he began his industrial career in a miniature soda-works at Ringkuhl near Cassel, where he began the researches that led to his sulphur recovery process ; he next became manager of a factory at Mainz for the production of acetic acid by wood distillation. Thence proceeding to Cologne, he worked there at the production of ammonia from waste leather. ”

“ About this time he established a course of popular scientific lectures for working men in Glasgow, probably the first of its kind. An official report of M. (later Baron) Charles Dupin on Ure's lectures led to the establishment of similar courses at the École des Arts et Métiers in Paris. In 1818 he published an important series of determinations on the specific gravity of solutions of sulphuric acid of varying strengths. On 10 Dec. 1818 he read a paper before the Glasgow Literary Society on electrical experiments he had made on the murderer Clydsdale after his execution. ”

“ Trans. 1852, p. 417) , that he pointed out the 'general symmetry' of the formulæ of a number of inorganic and organic compounds, and suggested that 'the combining power of the attracting element ... is always satisfied by the same number of ... atoms,' and thus introduced into chemistry the conception of valency, completed later by Kekulé, A. S. Couper, and Cannizzaro (Frankland, Experimental Researches, p. 154) , and now forming an integral part of the modern theory of organic .compounds. Frankland's theory passed without notice by the majority of chemists. ”

“ Ayrton accepted the chair of physics and telegraphy, and proceeding to Japan created a laboratory for teaching applied electricity. The first of its kind, this laboratory served as a model for those which Ayrton himself organised in England later, and through them for numerous other laboratories elsewhere. During the five years in Japan Ayrton with his colleague, Professor John Perry, carried out an extraordinarily large amount of experimental work ”

“ Peart in his ‘Animal Heat’ (1788) explained all chemical and physical phenomena by assuming the existence of four elements—æther, phlogiston, the acid principle, and earth. In the following year these were reduced to three, two active principles, æther and phlogiston, and one fixed. When a fixed particle is surrounded by an atmosphere of particles of æther radiating from it in straight lines, it forms an earthy (i.e. alkaline) particle; a phlogiston atmosphere producing an acid particle (The Elementary Principles of Nature, pp. 24, 285) . ”

“ The instruments have served as prototypes for the measuring instruments which have come into use in all countries, as electric power has become generally employed for domestic and commercial purposes. Ayrton and Perry also invented a clock meter and motor meter which served as models for the meters now used, and would have brought them an immense fortune, had they not abandoned their patents at too early a date. ”

“ Perceval was a successful physician; but his claims to fame rest chiefly on his philanthropic efforts. His published contributions to chemistry are unimportant; the notes for a medical treatise he intended to publish were handed to John Mason Good [q. v.] , on Perceval's hearing that Good contemplated a similar undertaking.
His published works are: 1. ‘Tentamen Physiologicum Inaugurale De Corde,’ Edinburgh, 1780. 2. ‘An Account of the Bequest of Sir P. Dun,’ Dublin, 1804. 3. ‘An Essay to establish the Divinity of ... Christ ... with a Review of the Doctrine of the Trinity,’ Dublin, 1821. ”

“ He became a medical student in the university of Glasgow, where he took the degree of M.D. He first studied chemistry under Professor Penny, whose assistant he became, and subsequently entered the university of Edinburgh, where he worked under Professor Gregory. He went to Melbourne in 1855, to fill the post of lecturer on chemistry and natural science in the Scotch College of that city. ”

“ In 1845 he began his career as an analyst and lecturer on chemistry in Derby, and became known for his interest in questions concerning food and hygiene. In 1851 he served as a juror at the Great Exhibition. In 1852 he published the first edition of 'Household Chemistry,' a popular work, of which the fourth edition, published in 1862, was called 'The Science of Home Life,' and the seventh edition, published in 1869, 'The Student's Chemistry.'
In 1855 Bernays was appointed to the lectureship in chemistry at St. ”

“ The drawings of plants are remarkably exact. The book, which has been translated into French and German, and has become a classic, involved an immense amount of labour. Percy's work on alloys, his discovery of ‘aluminium bronze,’ and his view that in many countries the iron age preceded the bronze age, deserve special mention.
Percy was appointed lecturer on metallurgy to the artillery officers at Woolwich in 1864 (circa) (Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, 1885, i. 8) , and retained this post till his death. ”

“ Ayrton acted as professor of applied physics at Finsbury from 1881 till 1884, and then became first professor of physics and electrical engineering in the Central Technical College, a post which he held till his death. ”

“ The two men published an interesting paper on the conversion of ethyl cyanide into propionic acid (Mem. Chem. Soc. 1847, iii. 386) , a reaction which Dumas and others showed a few months later to be typical of a series of reactions which rendered possible the synthesis of all the fatty acids (Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, xxv. 383, 656) . ”

“ Down, was born in Dublin on 30 Sept. 1756. He was descended from Sir Philip Perceval [q. v.] , and hence related to the earls of Egmont. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1772, and graduated B.A. in 1777. He then proceeded to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, and graduated M.D. on 24 June 1780, with a thesis on the physiology of the heart. After studying two years on the continent, he returned to Dublin in 1783, when he was appointed lecturer on chemistry in the university. ”

“ After attending University College school from 1859 to 1864, he entered University College London in 1864-5, and in July 1865 and July 1866 took the Andrews mathematical scholarships for first and second year students respectively. ”

“ In 1796, when his name appears in the ‘List of the Members of the Board of Agriculture,’ he lived in Leicester Square. Pearson and his colleague Woodville were among the first to recognise the value of the discovery of vaccination by Edward Jenner (1749–1823) [q. v.] , and were, indeed, the first to make experiments on a large scale in this matter. Soon after Jenner's first publications they vaccinated 160 patients, and subsequently inoculated sixty for smallpox, of whom none took the disease (20 Jan. to 17 March 1799) . ”

“ Saviours, Southwark, was for many years chemist and analyst to the Kent Water Company, and sometime examiner to the Royal College of Physicians. He died from bronchitis at Acre House, Brixton, on 5 Jan. ”

“ Pearson sent out letters to doctors in England and abroad with regard to his work; and, in spite of the continental war, correspondence on vaccination was permitted between him and medical men in France and Italy (Gent. Mag.) On 2 Dec. 1799 a vaccine pock institution, which became the official institution for the army and navy, was established by his efforts at 5 Golden Square. He had not informed Jenner of his plan, though he eventually offered him the post of extra corresponding physician, an honour promptly declined. ”

“ In 1896 he gave 100,000l. under a special trust to found and equip the Davy-Faraday Laboratory, in a house next to the Royal Institution, for research in chemistry and physics; and by his will he left two sums of 50,000l. ”

“ His name appears as treasurer, and afterwards as vice-president, of the Geological Society in the first volumes of their ‘Transactions’ (beginning in 1811) . He was also an early member of the Mineralogical Society. He appears to have succeeded to his father's business in the Poultry, and to have extended it to philosophical-instrument making. ”

“ He will be remembered chiefly by his inauguration of popular scientific lectures, and by his popular scientific works, which, in spite of a somewhat inflated and diffuse style, are clear and interesting. ”

“ He subsequently became involved in personal controversy with his colleague, Dr. E. Hill, who was obliged, under the provisions of the act, to resign the professorship of botany, which he had held simultaneously with the regius professorship of physic. ”

“ In 1846 he worked with David Forbes (1828–1876) [q. v.] and William Hallowes Miller [q. v.] on crystallised slags. In 1847 he became a fellow of the Royal Society, and served on the council from 1857 to 1859. ”

“ Gent. Mag. 1856, i. 521; J. C. Poggendorff's Biogr. Lit. Handwörterbuch zur Gesch. der exacten Wissenschaften; Life of William Allen, 3 vols. 1846–7, passim; Transactions of the Geological Society, vol. i. 1811, &c.; Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers, vol. iv.; Hermann's Physiology Trans., Gamgee, p. 158; Landois and Stirling's Physiology, 1st edit. p. 259; account of the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus (belonging to W. H. P.) , Tilloch's Phil. Mag. xiii. 179, 256; and Pepys's own papers and his collection of manuscript papers relating to the Royal Institution in the Brit. Mus. Library. ”

“ Thomas's Hospital. In 1775 he travelled through France, Germany, and Holland, returning to England in 1777, and settling in Doncaster, where he became intimate with the actor John Philip Kemble [q. v.] ”

“ Men of the Time, 11th edit.; Athenæum, 1889, i. 795; Blandford in Proc. of the Geological Soc. 1890, p. 45; Mrs. Andrew Crosse, ‘A Many-sided Man,’ in Temple Bar, lxxxix. 354, written from personal knowledge and information supplied by Percy's family; obituary in Journ. of the Iron and Steel Institute, 1889, i. 210; Times, 11 Dec. 1879, 1 Jan. 1880, and 11 and 13 Feb. 1880; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Royal Soc. Cat. of Scientific Papers; Cat. of Metallurgical Specimens formed by J. Percy, 1892. ”