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Concept
Charles Frédéric Gerhardt
Summary
Charles Frédéric Gerhardt (21 August 1816 – 19 August 1856) was a French chemist, born in Alsace and active in Paris, Montpellier, and his native Strasbourg.
He was born in Strasbourg, which is where he attended the gymnasium (an advanced academic secondary school). He then studied at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where Friedrich Walchner's lectures first stimulated his interest in chemistry. Next he attended the school of commerce in Leipzig, where he studied chemistry under Otto Linné Erdmann, who further developed his interest into a passion for questions of speculative chemistry.
Returning home in 1834, he entered his father's white lead factory, but soon found that business was not to his liking, and after a sharp disagreement with his father in his 20th year he enlisted in a cavalry regiment. In a few months military life became equally distasteful, and he purchased his discharge with the assistance of the German chemist Justus von Liebig. After a short period of living in Dresden, he went to the University of Giessen in central Germany in 1836 to study and work in Liebig's laboratory. His stay at Giessen lasted 18 months, and in 1837 he re-entered the factory. Again, however, he quarrelled with his father, and in 1838 he went to Paris with introductions from Liebig.
In Paris, he attended Jean Baptiste Dumas’ lectures and worked with Auguste Cahours (1813–1891) on essential oils, especially cumin, in Michel Eugène Chevreul’s laboratory at the Jardin des Plantes, meanwhile earning a precarious living by teaching and making translations of some of Liebig’s writings. In 1841, through the influence of Dumas, he was charged with the duties of chemistry professor at the Montpellier faculty of sciences, becoming titular professor in 1844.
In 1842 he annoyed his friends in Paris by the matter and manner of a paper on the classification of organic compounds. Later, he published Précis de chimie organique (1844–1845).
Official source
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