Laboratory at Giessen

In Germany, Liebig s well-known laboratory at Giessen was preceded by several other chemical laboratories, notably, those of Friedrich Stromeyer at Gottingen and Johann Dobereiner at Jena. 86 It is striking, as Russell McCormmach has noted, that in Germany and elsewhere the first directors of laboratories in experimental physics tended to be men trained in chemistry. 87... 

For some years Liebig had no private laboratory at Giessen, working in the small room with his pupils. The balance room was unheated. The lecture room was also very small, the students in front having their ink-pots on the... 

There were European precedents for the role that chemists played in the reorientation of the American university. Liebig s laboratory at Giessen was the first in a tradition of institutes which transformed German scientific education (see III, Morrell, 1972 III, Borscheid,1976,esp. 33-71 and III, Riese, 1977,134-145, 216-224). Henry Roscoe s chemistry department at Owens College (later the University of Manchester) was modeled on those of Liebig and Bunsen. On Roscoe s role in the reorganization of scientific and technical education at Owens, see III, Kargon, 1977, 167-220. Roscoe s own account of his tenure is III, Roscoe, 1887, and his influence is discussed by a former student in III, Thorpe, 1916, 34-52, 77-96. 

Nitroglycerin was first prepared late in the year 1846 or early in 1847 by the Italian chemist, Ascanio Sobrero (1812-1888), who was at the time professor of applied chemistry at the University of Torino. Sobrero had studied medicine in the same city, and in 1834 had been authorized to practice as a physician. After that he studied with Pelouze in Paris and served as his assistant in his private laboratory from 1840 to 1843. In 1843 he left Paris, studied for several months with Liebig at Giessen, and returned to Torino where he took up the duties of a teacher and in 1845... 

Carl Remigius Fresenius (Frankfurt, 28 December 1818-Wiesbaden, ii June 1897), assistant to Liebig at Giessen, established (1848) an analytical teaching laboratory in Wiesbaden and was professor in the Agricultural Institute there (1845-76). Fresenius wrote books on qualitative and quantitative analysis which went through numerous editions and translations. ... 

---