Bernard Courtois ( French Bernard Courtois ; February 8, 1777 , Dijon, France - September 27, 1838 , Paris, France) - French chemist . Known for the discovery of iodine and possibly morphine .
| Bernard Courtois | |
|---|---|
| fr. Bernard courtois | |
| Date of Birth | February 8, 1777 |
| Place of Birth | Dijon , Burgundy , France |
| Date of death | September 27, 1838 (61 years old) |
| Place of death | Paris , France |
| A country | France |
| Scientific field | pharmacy , chemistry |
| Alma mater | Polytechnic School (Paris) |
| supervisor | Fourcroix , Tenard and Segen |
| Known as | discoverer of iodine (1811) and possibly morphine (1804) |
| Awards and prizes | Prize of the French Academy of Sciences (1831) |
Content
Biography
The Early Years in Dijon
Bernard Courtois was born in 1777 in Dijon , the capital of the province of Burgundy , France . I did not receive formal school education [1] . His father, Jean-Baptiste Courtois, came from a family of local shoemakers, and his mother, Marie Bleu, was the daughter of a peasant. When they married in 1771, Jean-Baptiste was the valet of 82-year-old Bush de Grandmond, the first president of the Dijon Chamber of Commerce and the owner of a city hotel. After their first son died in 1772, Marie and Jean-Baptiste had 6 children: daughter Katerina, sons Pierre, Bernard, Jean-Baptiste, then in 1780 the twins Anne-Marie and Pierre. After the death of Grandmon in 1772, Jean-Baptiste Sr. began to sell wine, and when the hotel was sold to the Dijon Academy of Sciences and a chemical laboratory was opened there, he got a laboratory assistant there in 1775.
In January 1776, Bernard's father became a demonstrator of Guiton de Morvo [2] . Three years later, Jean-Baptiste rented a house in the Academy building, where the family lived for the next 10 years. The laboratory, necessary for practical scientific demonstrations, has served as a small pharmacy store since 1778 , managed by Jean-Baptiste, who was even called the “pharmacist of the Academy” in the family circle.
The French leadership at that time was looking for ways to increase the production of saltpeter necessary for the manufacture of gunpowder. In Dijon, thanks to the collaboration of Guiton and the Burgundy supplier of Champi's gunpowder, in 1778, work began on the construction of an experimental plant for the production of artificial nitrate . When the factory opened in 1780 , it was named after Saint Medard, and Jean-Baptiste Courtois became its manager on the recommendation of Guiton. However, he retained his position in the chemical laboratory, and the family lived in the Academy.
In 1788 , Jean-Baptiste and his wife bought a plant for the production of nitrate them. St. Medard at Guiton and Champi. The following year, when Bernard was 12 years old, they moved, leaving their apartment at the Academy on October 31. Bernard, with his older brother Pierre, began to study saltpeter production and help his father. In 1793, the Dijon Academy was closed, and Jean-Baptiste was fired from the laboratory. Then he concentrated on saltpeter production and later earned on the purchase of certain national lands, which became possible under the new legislation.
Bernard lived at the plant. St. Medard to 18 years. Around 1795 , he left home to begin his studies in the city of Auxerre 80 miles from Dijon under the supervision of Fremy (his grandson is an outstanding chemist Edmund Fremy ). Bernard spent three years in a pharmacy near Fremy and became interested in practical chemistry. Around 1798, he was invited to take a position in the chemical laboratory of Antoine Francois de Fourcroix at the Polytechnic School in Paris . This happened thanks to the support of his godfather Barnard Marais, a Parisian diplomat [1] .
At the Polytechnic School
Two years before Bernard entered the Polytechnic School, it was reorganized with a significant reduction in funding. Since 1799 , students began to study for two years instead of three, but the chemistry course remained the same. Chemistry at that time was taught by three prominent professors: Guiton de Morvo , Fourcroix and Bertollet [3] .
A strong influence on Bernard Courtois had an acquaintance with Louis-Jacques Tenard . After serving in the army in 1799-1801. (as a pharmacist in military hospitals) Courtois began working in the laboratory of Tenard. Around this time, Arman Seguin, a former assistant to Lavoisier, opened a research laboratory at the School [4] . Since Segen was a supplier of leather for shoes of Napoleon’s armies, he was a wealthy man and had the opportunity to finance scientific work [5] . One of his research projects was the study of opium , which he commissioned Bernard in 1802 when he moved to Segen's laboratory. However, in 1804, the Polytechnic School was reorganized, and Segen left it. In the same year, Bernard left college to help his father's carpentry in Paris.
Jean-Baptiste Courtois
At the beginning of 1802 , the 54-year-old father of Bernard moved from Dijon to Paris to organize saltpeter production in the capital. He bought the premises on 29 St. Margaret Street in the eastern suburbs of St. Antoine.
Production was unprofitable, and in 1805, Jean-Baptiste became bankrupt. He spent 26 months in the prison of St. Pelargia for debtors from approximately November 1805 until his release in December 1807. Bernard had to manage the saltpeter business on St. Margarita Street.
In 1808 , Bernard married Madeleine Moran, daughter of a Parisian hairdresser. In 1816 , they had a son, Louis [6] .
Production of iodine and its salts
In 1811 , Bernard Courtois first obtained iodine by the reaction of sulfuric acid with a solution of seaweed ash. Bernard was recognized as the discoverer of iodine only two years later. Around 1820, German doctors visiting Paris told Courtois about the many valuable medical properties that iodine possesses. This became known from a medical study by a Swiss doctor Jean-Francois Kuande, who discovered that iodine is an effective remedy for goiter and a number of other diseases [7] .
With the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the import of cheap Indian nitrate began , which made its production less profitable. With the support of Clement and Desorm, Bernard developed an industrial process in which chlorine was used to obtain iodine from a stock solution of seaweed ash. Courtois first appears as a manufacturer of high-quality iodine and its salts in 1822 at the address in Paris - Embankment Cite, 3 (now part of Corsica Embankment).
Bernard's business remained small, despite the growing demand for iodine (as it became known about its medical properties). After a while, he produced 400 kg of iodine per year at a price of 100 francs per kilogram (Bernard sold at 600 francs). Bernard's business existed until he was bought out by Couturier & Company in 1835. Then he began to live in house 12 on Limpass de Recolla.
In 1831 , the Royal Academy of Sciences awarded Bernard Courtois 6,000 francs as part of the Montion Prize on the recommendation of Louis-Jacques Tenard. However, when he died at home on September 27, 1839 at the age of 61, he left nothing to the widow and son. He was buried in a temporary grave for 5 years in the cemetery of the North, where Courtois is now buried, is unknown. Madeleine, as the widow of Bernard Courtois, the discoverer of iodine, received financial assistance from the National Industry Promotion Society and the Pharmaceutical Society.
Research
Work with Fourcroix and Tenard (1798-1802)
Fukrkuya and Tenar studied the properties of chlorine (including its disinfecting properties), the processes of production of nitrate and gunpowder . They were interested in the chemistry of organic substances and metal oxides . However, there is no reliable information about the exact topics of Courtois' work in this period of time.
Thus, in the laboratories of Fourcroix and Tenard, Bernard acquired a good knowledge of the practical techniques used in organic and analytical chemistry. Bernard gained valuable experience, which allowed Armand Segen to entrust him with the study of opium in 1802.
Work with Segen. Morphine (1802-1804)
Segen presented his first opium work to the French Institute on December 24, 1804 , but it was not published until 1814 [8] . One of the substances highlighted in this study was morphine . Fremy noted in one of his letters to a colleague that he saw Courtois trying to obtain organic alkali artificially; the widow of Courtois also subsequently wrote that he had been seriously engaged in morphine for a long time [1] .
Promising research on opium by Segen ended when the Polytechnic School was reorganized.
The discovery of iodine (1811)
France fought until 1815 , and the sale of saltpeter was mainly controlled by the state, because of this there was a shortage of wood ash for obtaining potassium nitrate from it. As an alternative source of potassium salts, manufacturers turned to cheap soda, which was made from the ash of Norman and Breton algae. At the end of 1811 , when Bernard Courtois investigated the corrosion of copper vessels and noticed unusual purple smoke - iodine vapor . This event was described by Humphrey Davy [9] :
| This substance was discovered by accident, two years ago mrs. Courtois, a Parisian industrialist. In the process by which he obtained soda from ash from algae, he discovered that the metal vessels that he used deteriorated, and he began to search for the cause of corrosion when he discovered a new substance. It appeared when a little sulfuric acid was added to the ash after extraction of sodium carbonate. When the acid was concentrated enough for serious heating, the new substance appeared in the form of a beautiful violet smoke and condensed into crystals that had the color and luster of graphite. |
Bernard studied the new substance in his laboratory for several months, although he was busy with his production. He determined many of its properties, including the reaction with ammonia to form an explosive powder [10] . Around May 1812 , Courtois informed his former colleagues Nicolas Clement and Charles-Bernard Desormot of his discovery and asked them to continue their research. Only by November 29, 1813, Clement was able to announce this to the Institute. Clement submitted the article a week later, on December 6, with Bernard as a co-author, using the name “iodine” as proposed by Gay-Lussac . In addition, the article contained a study by Gay-Lussac on iodine and his opinion that this is a simple substance similar to chlorine [11] .
Before the announcement of the discovery of Bernard, Clement invited Gay-Lussac to conduct a series of studies of a new substance, which he also showed to scientists Shamtal and Ampere . Humphrey Davy , who was also in Paris at the end of 1813 , received a sample of iodine from Ampere and did many experiments in which he showed that this is a new indecomposable substance with chemical properties similar to the properties of chlorine, and it forms a new acid with hydrogen . Actually, Davy’s results were published in December 1813 [12] , almost simultaneously with two articles by Gay-Lussac on iodine [13] [14] .
Interesting Facts
There is another version of the discovery of iodine, the culprit of which was the beloved cat Courtois. The chemist working in the laboratory had a cat on his shoulder, which jumped onto the table and pushed the vessels standing next to it on the floor, in one of which was an alcohol solution of seaweed ash, and in the second - sulfuric acid. After mixing the liquids, a cloud of blue-violet vapor appeared, which was nothing more than iodine.
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 LG Toraude, Bernard Courtois (1777-1838) et la découverte de l'iode (1811). Vigot Frères, Paris, 1921.
- ↑ WA Smeaton, Science and the Arts in a French Provincial City. The Dijon Academy from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century. // Proc. Manchester lit. Philos. Soc., 1993-94, v. 132, pp 81-91.
- ↑ WA Smeaton, Fourcroy, Antoine François de, in C. C Gillispie, Ed., Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1970-1979, Vol. 5, pp 89-93.
- ↑ M. Bradley, The Facilities for Practical Instruction in Science during the Early Years of the Ecole Polytechnique. // Annals Sci., 1976, v. 33, pp 425-446.
- ↑ S. Pierson, Séguin, Armand. Vol. 12, pp 286-287.
- ↑ PA Swain, Bernard Courtois (1777-1838), famed for discovering iodine (1811), and his life in Paris from 1798. // Bull. Hist. Chem., 2005, v. 30, No. 2, pp 103-111.
- ↑ B. Reber, Le Docteur Coindet. // Aesculape, 1913, v. 3, pp 93-96.
- ↑ A. Séguin, Premier Mémoire sur l'Opium. // Ann. Chim., 1814, v. 92, pp 224-247.
- ↑ H. Davy, Some Experiments and Observations on a New Substance which becomes a Violet-colored Gas by Heat. // Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London, 1814, Part 1, pp 74-93.
- ↑ J. Gay-Lussac, Mémoire Sur l'iode. // Ann. Chim. 1814, 91, 5-160; see “Note historique sur la découverte de l'iode,” pp 118-119.
- ↑ B. Courtois, Découverte d'une substance nouvelle dans le Vareck. // Ann. Chim., 1813, v. 88, pp 304-310.
- ↑ H. Davy, Sur la nouvelle substance découverte par M. Courtois, dans le sel de Vareck. // Ann. Chim., 1813, v. 88, pp 322-329.
- ↑ J. Gay-Lussac, Sur un nouvel acide formé avec la substance découverte par M. Courtois. // Ann. Chim., 1813, v. 88, pp 311-318.
- ↑ J. Gay-Lussac, Sur la combinaison de l'iode avec l'oxigène. // Ann. Chim., 1813, v. 88, pp 319-321.
Literature
- Grigorovich P.S., Kurilov V.V. Courtois, Bernard // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.