Eugène Auguste Nicolas Millon (24 April 1812 – 22 October 1867) was a French chemist and physician. He is remembered in the name of

Millon's reagent Millon's reagent is an analytical reagent used to detect the presence of soluble proteins. A few drops of the reagent are added to the test solution, which is then heated gently. A reddish-brown coloration or precipitate indicates the presence of t ...

which reacts with

tyrosine -Tyrosine or tyrosine (symbol Tyr or Y) or 4-hydroxyphenylalanine is one of the 20 standard amino acids that are used by cells to synthesize proteins. It is a non-essential amino acid with a polar side group. The word "tyrosine" is from the Gr ...

in proteins to form a brown precipitate. The reagent is used for determination of the presence of soluble proteins. Millon was born in

Saint-Seine-l'Abbaye Saint-Seine-l'Abbaye () is a commune in the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France. It is also a place steeped in history with its archaeological sites, the goddess Sequana; nymph Sources close to the Seine and Alesia, the remnants of its ancien ...

and after his education, he taught briefly at the Collège Rollin after before training in medicine at the military hospital at Val-de-Grâce from 1832 to 1835. After serving for a while in the army he left surgery to study pharmacy and chemistry and became a pharmacist in 1838, serving from 1850 to 1865 in Algeria. His most well-known contribution was the reaction of mercury and nitric acid with egg albumen which produces a white precipitate that turns red on heating. His other contributions were on compounds of chlorine and iodine including the acids. He examined salts in blood. An Algerian stamp commemorating him was released in 1954.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Millon, Eugène Auguste Nicolas 1812 births 1867 deaths 19th-century French chemists People from Côte-d'Or