WOHLER, FRIEDRICH (180o-1882), German chemist, was born at Eschersheim, near Frankfort-on-the-Main, on July 31, 180o. In 1814 he began to attend the gymnasium at Frank fort, where he carried out experiments with his friend Dr. J. J. C. Buch. In 1820 he entered Marburg university, and next year removed to Heidelberg, where he worked in Gmelin's laboratory. Intending to practise as a physician, he took his degree in med icine and surgery (1823), but was persuaded by Gmelin to devote himself to chemistry. He studied in Berzelius's laboratory at Stockholm, and there began a lifelong friendship with the Swedish chemist. He then taught in the technical schools of Berlin (1825-31) and Cassel (1831-36). In 1836 he was appointed to the chair of chemistry in the medical faculty at Gottingen, hold ing also the office of inspector-general of pharmacies in the kingdom of Hanover. This professorship he held until his death on Sept. 23, 1882.
In 1827 WOhler first obtained metallic aluminium by heating the chloride with potassium, and in the following year he isolated beryllium by the same method. His great contribution to the development of chemistry was the synthesis of the natural pro duct urea (q.v.) in 1828. He worked with Liebig in a number of important investigations. One of the earliest was the investi gation, published in 1830, which proved the polymerism of cyanic and cyanuric acid, but the most famous were those on the oil of bitter almonds (benzaldehyde) and the radicle benzoyl (1832), and on uric acid (1837), which are of fundamental importance in the history of organic chemistry. Most of WOhler's work, how
ever, lay in the field of inorganic chemistry. Together with Sainte-Claire Deville, he obtained "Adamantine boron," and with H. Buff he investigated compounds of silicon and prepared a hydride of that element. He also obtained pure titanium and showed the similarity between this element and silicon and carbon.
The Royal Society's Catalogue enumerates 276 separate memoirs written by him, apart from 43 in which he collaborated with others. In 1831 he published Grundriss der anorganischen Chemie, and in 1840 Grundriss der organischen Chemie. Still more valuable for teaching purposes was his Mineralanalyse in Beispielen 0860, which first appeared in 2853 as Praktische Cbuniven in der chemischen Analyse. He translated three editions of the Lehrbuch of Berzelius and all the successive volumes of the Jahresbericht into German from the original Swedish. He assisted Liebig and Poggendorff in the Handworterbuch der reinen and angewandten Chemie, and was joint-editor with Liebig of the Annalen der Chemie and Pharmacie.
A memoir by Hofmann appeared in the Ber. dent. chem. Gesellsch. (1882), reprinted in Zur Erinnerung an vorangegangene Freunde (1888).