After an unsuccessful attempt to work for his father, Gerhardt resumed chemical studies with Justus Liebig at the University of Giessen in Germany from 1836 to 1837.
Gallery of Charles Gerhardt
12 Place du Panthéon, 75231 Paris, France
A final attempt at reconciliation with his father failed, and Gerhardt left in 1838 to study chemistry under Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas at the University of Paris, from which he received a doctorate in 1841.
Gallery of Charles Gerhardt
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
In 1831 young Gerhardt entered the newly founded Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where he followed intermediate courses in chemistry, physics, and mathematics.
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
In 1831 young Gerhardt entered the newly founded Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where he followed intermediate courses in chemistry, physics, and mathematics.
After an unsuccessful attempt to work for his father, Gerhardt resumed chemical studies with Justus Liebig at the University of Giessen in Germany from 1836 to 1837.
A final attempt at reconciliation with his father failed, and Gerhardt left in 1838 to study chemistry under Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas at the University of Paris, from which he received a doctorate in 1841.
Charles Frédéric Gerhardt was a French chemist. He was a professor of chemistry at the University of Montpellier.
Background
Charles Gerhardt was born on August 21, 1816, in Strassburg, France. His father, Samuel Gerhardt, who came from a family of brewers, was born in Switzerland. As a young man he moved to Strasbourg, where he found employment in a bank and married an outstanding beauty of the town, Charlotte Henriette Weber. Samuel Gerhardt’s position in the banking house of Turkheim gave his family the benefits of a prosperous and cultured home. Like many inhabitants of Strasbourg, the Gerhardts spoke and Wrote French and German with almost equal facility.
Education
In 1831 young Gerhardt entered the newly founded Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where he followed intermediate courses in chemistry, physics, and mathematics. In 1833 his father sent him to a commercial college in Leipzig. Even there, however, he had lodgings in the house of the chemsist Otto Erdmann, who encouraged his scientific interests. After an unsuccessful attempt to work for his father, he resumed chemical studies with Justus Liebig at the University of Giessen in Germany from 1836 to 1837. A final attempt at reconciliation with his father failed, and Gerhardt left in 1838 to study chemistry under Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas at the University of Paris, from which he received a doctorate in 1841.
Having seen the attraction of pure science, Charles came into open conflict with his father, who wanted him to return to the family chemical factory. After a violent quarrel the son left home to join a regiment of lancers. Here too, he was unhappy and managed to borrow the 2,000 francs necessary to buy himself out. Realizing that his vocation was chemistry, Gerhardt went to Giseen, where Lieberg was beginning to build up a reputation, and was enrolled in Liebig’s course for 1836-1837.
To earn money for his studies, Gerhardt undertook the translation of one of Liebig’s works into French and in so doing helped his own career. In April 1837 he left Liebig to make a final attempt to reconcile himself with his father. Yet he could not settle down to a life of commerce. To make his mark in chemistry he left for Paris. For three years he studied with Dumas and won the degress of licentiate and doctor.
On the recommedation of Dumas, Gerhardt was nominated to a vacancy in the Faculty of Sciences in Montpellier. In fact Gerhardt was only chargé de cours in 1841 and had to wair three years for nomination to the rank of titular professor. He soon found that the facilities for research were very limited and that it was difficult to settled won so far from Paris and Strasbourg. He went to Paris as often as possible and finally obtained leave of absence to work there, When in 1851 a request for further leave was refused, Gerhardt resigned. He did so the more easily as he was then, with the help of borrowed money, establishing his own private school for practical chemistry. This was not a financial success, but in 1854 he was able to secure a further university appointment. There were two vacancies for chairs of chemistry at Strasboung, in the Faculty of Sciences and the School of Pharmacy, and both were offered to him. Although reluctant to leave Paris, Gerhardt was glad to return to his native city. Above all, his position in French chemistry was now recognized, and his financial problems were at an end.
In 1844 there began a close friendship with Laurent, professor of chemistry at Bordeaux. They had much in common; zeal for a new approach to organic chemistry with poor facilities available for research, and above all, isolation from the center of power in Paris because of the remoteness of their provincial teaching posts.
Gerhardt was attracted several times in his career to scientific journalism. He was a collaborator in the first issues of Quesneville’s Revue Scientifique et industrielle, and it is typical of his literary zeal that he should produce a new journal from his association with Laurent. Their Comptes rendus mensuels des travaux chimiques, although a help in publicizing their own work, was not well received and lasted only from 1845 to 1851.
A considerable part of Gerhard’t claim to our attention is connected with his use of certain formulas in chemistry. Like Lavoisier, he felt that chemistry could be successfully pursued only if it were based on a rational and systematic language. It was not merely that formulas are a reflection of our basic concepts but, more, that “our formulas are our ideas." It is not surprising, therefore, to find Gerhardt insisting on the importance of writing chemical equations. Gerhardt was one of the first to make systematic use of equations in chemistry.
Another notable, althought less well-known, contribution of Gerhardt’s was his redefinition of acids. Since the standardization of inorganic and organic formulas, effected by Gerhardt, strictly precluded the preexistence of water in the molecule of a monobasic acid, some alternative convention for the formulation of acids was required. During the 1830’s Liebig had become dissatisfied with the (anhydride + water) model but had not been prepared to introduce the alternative hydrogen theory in inorganic chemistry, even though he had commended it for the organic domain.
Charles Gerhardt was an eminent chemist. He is known for his work on reforming the notation for chemical formulas. He also worked on acid anhydrides, and synthesized acetylsalicylic acid, albeit in an unstable and impure form.
A major problem confronting chemists in the early 1840’s was whether it was possible to ascertain the arrangement of atoms in a compound. Gerhardt reacted violently against the empiricist principle that the arrangement of the atoms could be inferred from a compound’s more of formation or from its reactions. He maintained that we cannot infer arrangements from reactions; all we can ever know are the reactions. So, whereas the view of Berzelius was that each compound had a rational formula and there remained only the practical difficulty of discovering what it was, Gerhard’ts view became the exact opposite. We could never know the arrangement of atoms but only the reactions of compounds. Any formula must be based on a particular reaction. If an aldehyde behaves in some reactions like an oxide and in others like a hydride, it must be given two different formulas according to the occasion. Gerhardt took his operational definition of a formula to the logical conclusion and stated that a compound has “as many rational formulas as reactions,” consequently his chemistry has a positivist flavor. A chemical formula for Gerhardt was simply equivalent to a particular reaction of a compound and thus had little explanatory value.
Quotations:
“The only approach which is at the same time rigorous and easy and which can be reconciled with the individual opinions of all chemists is that which consists in expressing reactions by equations from which all purely hypothetical entities are excluded."
Membership
Gerhard was a member of the Sociétée D’Historie Naturelle de Strasbourg.
Personality
In national and academic politics Gerhardt was numbered among the radicals. He became bitterly opposed to Dumas, who had come to typify the scientific establishment. Gerhardt’s position was not helped by his readiness to speculate, his lack of tact, and his dogmatism. He was involved in many disputes, even with his protector Liebig.
Connections
In 1844 Gerhardt married Jane Megget Sanders of Edinburgh, whose brother was studying in Montpellier; through her he learned English and became trilingual. They had two sons and a daughter; the elder son, Charles, was an engineer and cowrote his father’s biography. When Gerhardt was struggling financially in Paris in the early 1850s, his wife’s family provided essential support.
