Barnabas Wood (May 17, 1819 in

Guilderland, New York Guilderland is a town in Albany County, New York, United States. In the 2020 census, the town had a population of 36,848. The town is named for the Gelderland province in the Netherlands. The town of Guilderland is on the central-northwest borde ...

– May 30, 1875 in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...

) was an American

dentist A dentist, also known as a dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry (the diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the mouth, oral cavity and other aspects of the craniofaci ...

and inventor best known for his discovery of the

fusible alloy A fusible alloy is a metal alloy capable of being easily fused, i.e. easily meltable, at relatively low temperatures. Fusible alloys are commonly, but not necessarily, eutectic alloys. Sometimes the term "fusible alloy" is used to describe alloys ...

known as

Wood's metal Wood's metal, also known as Lipowitz's alloy or by the commercial names Cerrobend, Bendalloy, Pewtalloy and MCP 158, is a metal alloy that is useful for soldering and making custom metal parts, but which is toxic to touch or breathe vapors from. ...

.Finding aid for the Barnabas Wood Papers: MS.3459
, at the Library of the

University of Tennessee, Knoxville The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...

; retrieved July 28, 2014

Professional life

After briefly attending

Albany Medical College Albany Medical College (AMC) is a private medical school in Albany, New York. It was founded in 1839 by Alden March and James H. Armsby and is one of the oldest medical schools in the nation. The college is part of the Albany Medical Center, which ...

in 1841, Wood began practicing dentistry in the company of his brother.Biographies: BARNABAS WOOD
in the ''Transactions of the Medical Society of the County of Albany'' (1888) In 1851, he moved to

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...

, where he earned his medical degree from the

University of Nashville University of Nashville was a private university in Nashville, Tennessee. It was established in 1806 as Cumberland College. It existed as a distinct entity until 1909; operating at various times a medical school, a four-year military college, a ...

in 1852.

In 1860, Wood announced the discovery of an

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an alloy will retain all the properties of a metal in the resulting material, such as electrical conductivity, ductility, ...

bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental ...

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

, and

cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Like zinc, it demonstrates oxidation state +2 in most of ...

, in proportions such that it had a very low melting point;

James Dwight Dana James Dwight Dana Royal Society of London, FRS FRSE (February 12, 1813 – April 14, 1895) was an American geologist, mineralogist, volcanologist, and zoologist. He made pioneering studies of mountain-building, volcano, volcanic activity, and the ...

subsequently proposed that it be named "Wood's Fusible Metal" in his honor.Ask the Historian: Onion's Fusible Alloy
by William B. Jensen, in the ''

Journal of Chemical Education The ''Journal of Chemical Education'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal available in both print and electronic versions. It is published by the Division of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society and was established in 1924 ...

'' (archived at the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,00 ...

), volume 87, page 1050-1051; published 2010; retrieved July 28, 2014 Wood remained in Tennessee until the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

began in 1861, at which point his "sympathy with the

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

" led him to return to New York. In 1867, he earned a degree from the

Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery The Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery (sometimes referred to informally as the Pennsylvania Dental College) was founded in 1856 in Philadelphia and was the second oldest operating school of dentistry in the United States by the time of its clos ...

. Wood also edited various periodicals, including ''The American Magazine and Repository of Useful Literature'' (1841–42), ''Southern Journal of Medical and Physical Sciences'' (1853–?), and ''The Dental Circular and Examiner'' (1860–1865).

References

External links

Dr. B. Wood's plastic metallic filling : embraced in letters patent granted March 20, 1860, patent for the improvement allowed
(1864), at

archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Barnabas 1819 births 1875 deaths American dentists University of Nashville alumni 19th-century dentists