Tag Archives: Jean Baptiste Dumas Biography

Originally published in Modern Development of the Chemical and Biological Sciences Vol. 4 in 1904. When Berzelius first promulgated his binary theory he was careful to restrict its unmodified application to the compounds of the inorganic world. At that time, and for a long time thereafter, it was supposed that substances of organic nature had some properties that kept them …

Jean Baptiste Dumas was born in the city of Alais (Languedoc-Roussillon Province) on the national holiday of July 14. This date would prove to be auspicious because his life would be intertwined with the fate of France, first as a revolutionary in science, later, as an eminent statesman. His father, a city clerk, would have sent him to serve in …