James Freeman Dana
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James Freeman Dana (born in
Amherst, New Hampshire Amherst is a town in Hillsborough County in the state of New Hampshire, United States. The population was 11,753 at the 2020 census. Amherst is home to Ponemah Bog Wildlife Sanctuary, Hodgman State Forest, the Joe English Reservation and Baboosi ...
, 23 September 1793; died in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, 14 April 1827) was an American chemist.


Biography

He graduated from
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
in 1813, and from the
medical school A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...
in 1817. He studied with Dr. John Gorham, and developed such ability that in 1815 he was selected by the authorities of Harvard to procure for the chemical laboratory a new outfit of apparatus. For this purpose, he visited
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, where for six months he worked in the laboratory of Friedrich Christian Accum. On his return to the United States he settled in
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, where he practised medicine and was appointed assistant to the chair in chemistry. In 1817 he was invited to lecture on chemistry at Dartmouth, and in 1820 became the first professor of chemistry and mineralogy there. He was chosen professor of chemistry in the
New York College of Physicians and Surgeons Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) is the graduate medical school of Columbia University, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Founded ...
in 1825, and continued as such until his death.


Works

While a student in Cambridge, he received the Boylston Prize for a dissertation on the “Tests for Arsenic,” and again in 1817 received the same prize for an essay on the “Composition of Oxymuriatic Acid.” He contributed numerous scientific memoirs to Silliman's '' American Journal of Science'' and to the ''Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History''. His larger works are ''Outlines of Mineralogy and Geology of Boston and its Vicinity'' (Boston, 1818), coauthored with his brother Samuel Luther Dana, and ''Epitome of Chemical Philosophy'' (Concord, New Hampshire, 1825).


Notes


References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dana, James Freeman 1793 births 1827 deaths American chemists Dartmouth College faculty People from Amherst, New Hampshire American mineralogists Harvard Medical School alumni