Adolph Ferdinand Gehlen (5 September 1775 – 16 July 1815) was a German

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...

Life and education

Gehlen was born in Bütow,

Farther Pomerania Farther Pomerania, Hinder Pomerania, Rear Pomerania or Eastern Pomerania (german: Hinterpommern, Ostpommern), is the part of Pomerania which comprised the eastern part of the Duchy and later Province of Pomerania. It stretched roughly from the Od ...

(now

Bytów Bytów (; csb, Bëtowò; formerly german: Bütow ) is a town in the Gdańsk Pomerania region of northern Poland with 16,730 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the capital of Bytów County in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. The origins of Byt ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

), he is known as the publisher of ''Neues allgemeines Journal der Chemie'' (1803–1806), ''Journal für Chemie und Physik'' (1806-10) and the ''Repetitorium für die Pharmacie'' (first series; later continued by

Johann Andreas Buchner Johann Andreas Buchner (6 April 1783, Munich – 5 June 1852, Munich) was a German pharmacologist working in the area of alkaloids. He was the father of pharmacologist Ludwig Andreas Buchner (1813–1897). He studied at Johann Bartholomäus Trom ...

). He studied at the

University of Königsberg The University of Königsberg (german: Albertus-Universität Königsberg) was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as the world's second Protestant academy (after the University of Marburg) by Duke Albert of Pruss ...

and obtained his residency in 1806 from the

University of Halle Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university in ...

, where he worked as a chemist in the clinical institute of

Johann Christian Reil Johann Christian Reil (20 February 1759 – 22 November 1813) was a German physician, physiologist, anatomist, and psychiatrist. He coined the term psychiatry – ''Psychiatrie'' in German – in 1808. Medical conditions and anatomical feature ...

. From 1807 to 1815 he served as an academic chemist at the

Bavarian Academy of Sciences The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledg ...

. He died from

arsenic poisoning Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, bu ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

on 16 July 1815, age 39.The Formation of the German Chemical Community, 1720-1795
by Karl Hufbauer

References

Sources

* * 18th-century German chemists German publishers (people) 1775 births 1815 deaths People from Bytów County People from the Province of Pomerania 19th-century German chemists {{Germany-chemist-stub