Eminent German chemist, born at Darmstadt; in 1824 attracted the attention of Alexander von Humboldt by a paper before the Institute of France on fulminates, and was appointed to the chair of Chemistry in Giessen, where he laboured 28 years, attracting students from all quarters, and where his laboratory became a model of many others elsewhere; wrote a number of works on chemistry, inorganic and organic, animal and agricultural, and their applications, as well as papers and letters; accepted a professorship in Münich in 1852, and in 1860 was appointed President of the Münich Academy of Sciences (1803-1873).