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LOUIS JACQUES THENARD (1777-1857)

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 760 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LOUIS JACQUES See also:THENARD (1777-1857)  , See also:French chemist, was See also:born on the 4th of May 1777 at Louptiere, near Nogentsur-See also:Seine, See also:Aube . His See also:father, a poor See also:peasant, managed to have him educated at the See also:academy of See also:Sens, and sent him at the See also:age of sixteen to study See also:pharmacy in See also:Paris . There he attended the lectures of A . F . See also:Fourcroy and L . N . See also:Vauquelin, and succeeded in gaining See also:admission, in a humble capacity, to the latter's laboratory . But his progress was so rapid that in two or three years he was able to take his See also:master's See also:place at the lecture-table, and Fourcroy and Vauquelin were so satisfied with his performance that they procured for him a school See also:appointment in 1797 as teacher of See also:chemistry, and in 1798 one as repetiteur at the Ecole Polytechnique . In 1804 Vauquelin resigned his professorship at the See also:College de See also:France and successfully used his See also:influence to obtain the appointment for See also:Thenard, who six years later, after Fourcroy's See also:death, was further elected to the chairs of chemistry at the Ecole Polytechnique and the Faculte See also:des Sciences . He also succeeded Fourcroy as member of the Academy . In 1825 he received the See also:title of See also:baron from See also:Charles X., and in 1832 See also:Louis Philippe made him a peer of France . From 1827 to 1830 he represented the See also:department of See also:Yonne in the chamber of deputies, and as See also:vice-See also:president of the Conseil superieur de l'instruction publique, he exercised a See also:great influence on scientific See also:education in France .

He died in Paris on the 21st of See also:

June 1857 . A statue was erected to his memory at Sens in 1861, and in 1865 the name of his native See also:village was changed to Louptiere-Thenard . Above all things Thenard was a teacher; as he himself said, the See also:professor, the assistants, the laboratory—everything must be sacrificed to the students . Like most great teachers he published a See also:text-See also:book,. and his Traite de Chimie elementaire, theorique'et pratique (4 vols., Paris, 1813-16), which served as a See also:standard for a See also:quarter of a See also:century, perhaps did even more for the advance of chemistry than his numerous See also:original discoveries . Soon after his appointment as repetileur at the Ecole Polytechnique he began a lifelong friendship with J . L . See also:Gay-Lussac, and the two carried out many researches together . Careful See also:analysis led him to dispute some of C . L . Berthollet's theoretical views regarding the See also:composition of the metallic oxides, and he also showed Berthollet's " zoonic See also:acid " to be impure acetic acid (1802); but Berthollet (q.v.), so far from resenting these corrections from a younger See also:man, invited him to become a member of the Societe d'See also:Arcueil . His first original See also:paper (1799) was on the compounds of See also:arsenic and See also:antimony with See also:oxygen and See also:sulphur, and of his other See also:separate investigations one of the most important was that on the See also:compound See also:ethers, begun in 1807 . His researches on sebacic acid (1802) and on bile (1807), and his See also:discovery of peroxide of See also:hydrogen (18r8) also deserve mention .

The substance known . as " Thenard's See also:

blue, " he prepared in 1799 in response to a See also:peremptory demand by J . A . See also:Chaptal for a cheap colouring See also:matter, as See also:bright as See also:ultramarine and capable of See also:standing the See also:heat of the See also:porcelain See also:furnace . Most of Th6nard's See also:memoirs, a See also:list of which may be found in the Royal Society's See also:Catalogue of Scientific Papers, were published in the Annales deCkimie et de Physique, the Memoires d'Arcueil, the Comptes Rend us and the Memoires of the Academy of Sciences .

End of Article: LOUIS JACQUES THENARD (1777-1857)
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