Brand, Henning

There is no doubt that the element phosphorus occupies a special position in the family of the elements. The Earth s crust (including the oceans), which is about 16 km thick, contains only about 0.04% phosphorus, compared, for example, with 2.4% potassium however, phosphorus is present in all the substances necessary for living processes. It does not occur in elemental form because of its high affinity for oxygen and has been known since its discovery by the alchemist Henning Brand in Hamburg in the course of his search for the philosopher s stone. However, it was many years later that Antoine Lavoisier realized that this new, shining substance was a chemical element. 

Most authorities agree that the original discoverer of elemental phosphorus was tire seventeenth-century alchemist and physician Hennig (or Henning) Brand of Hamburg. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-... 

Local anesthetic A substance that blocks transmission of pain by nerves when injected into a part of the body or w hen applied to mucous membranes Procaine is a synthetic local anesthetic marketed under the brand name Novocain. 

Scheele was, of course, well aware of the source of urinous phosphorus, as it had been originally been reported by Henning Brand a century earlier (see the earlier essay in this book, p. 225). His friend Gahn had discovered calcium phosphate in bone and horn around 1769 or 1770. Scheele treated burned hartshorn with nitric acid, precipitated gypsum with sulfuric acid, concentrated the filtrate and distilled the resulting phosphoric acid over charcoal, and collected the resulting phosphorus. ... 

FIGURE 2.6 The 3D shape of white phosphorus (P4), shown alongside its discoverer Hennig Brand. (This painting, by Joseph Wright of Derby, was obtained from http //en. wikipedia.0rg/wiki/File Henning brand.jpg)... 

Phosphorus was discovered in 1669 by a German alchemist, Henning Brand, in the course of his search for the Philosopher s Stone. Brand heated the residue left on evaporation of urine, and collected the distilled phosphorus in a receiver. The name given the element (from Greek phosphoros, giving light) refers to its property of glowing in the dark. 

Brandner J, Gietzelt T, Henning T, Kraut M, Mortiz H, Pfleging W. Microfabrication in metals and polymers. In Baltes H, Brand O, Fedder GK, Hierold C, editors. Advanced Micro Nanosystems Volume 5 - Micro Process Engineering Fundamentals, Devices, Fabrication, and Applications. Weinheim Wiley-VCH 2008. p. 267-319. 

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