Laurent, Auguste

[lohrã] (1807/8–53) French organic chemist: classifier of organic compounds.

Laurent was an organic chemist of much talent and energy, who studied . Thereafter his life was fraught with misfortune to an operatic extent; employers swindled him, posts he hoped for were unavailable or were found to lack facilities, a business venture failed and his contributions to theory brought him abuse until almost the end of his life. His last post, as underpaid assayer to the Mint, provided a damp cellar as laboratory and he died of lung disease just before his book Methods of Chemistry (1854) was published, leaving a near-destitute family. He was a skilful experimenter with a passion for classification; in particular, he developed Dumas’s ideas on organic substitution. He recognized that organic compounds could be classed in ‘types’, and he used this, and his idea of a nucleus of carbon atoms within an organic compound, to organize much of the organic chemistry of his time. This led to vigorous debate, from which a clearer view of organic compounds emerged by 1860. Laurent also did valuable work in benzene and related chemistry. His work in organic chemical theory is interwoven with work.