Career
Born and educated in Scotland, he emigrated to Argentina in 1862, and on the outbreak of the Paraguayan War served as a pharmacist in the Argentine Army medical corporations He became an Argentine citizen in 1873. At the time Kyle was active specialisation was not an option in Latin American chemistry and it was necessary for a chemist to be a sort of polymath or jack-of-all-trades.
Kyle was appointed professor of chemistry at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires in 1871, and chief chemist to the Casa de Moneda de la República Argentina (the Argentine Mint) in 1881.
He was appointed professor of organic chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires (1889). Chemist to the Inspectorate-General of Sanitary s (1890).
Professor of industrial chemistry at the Colegio Nacional (1892). And professor of inorganic chemistry at Buenos Aires University (1896).
He was director of the first chemistry doctoral thesis in Argentina (1901).
The Premio "Doctor Juan J. J. Kyle", awarded quinquennially by the Argentine Chemical Association for the best contribution to any branch of chemistry, and its most prestigious prize, is named in his honour. Kyle was born in Stirling, Scotland on 2 February 1838. He completed an apprenticeship with an Edinburgh pharmacy in 1851 and became assistant to Doctor Stevenson Macadam, lecturer in chemistry to Surgeons" Hall, Edinburgh.
He made his first scientific discovery at the age of 18.
Moving to the field of industrial chemistry, he was head of the chemical laboratory of Glasgow University and then manager of an animal charcoal manufacturer in Greenock. He emigrated to Argentina in July 1862.
When President-Marshall Solano Lopez of Paraguay invaded Corrientes Province in 1865 there broke out the War of the Triple Alliance and Kyle joined the medical corps of the Argentine Army as a pharmacist with the rank of lieutenant. He participated in the siege of Uruguaiana (where the defenders were reduced to living on lump sugar), the three-day battle of the Boquerón and in the Battle of Tuyutí, the bloodiest international battle in the history of South America.
He served on board the hospital ship Pavón and returned to Buenos Aires in December 1866 in charge of a convoy of wounded soldiers.
HIs wartime experiences led him to take a foundational interest in the Argentine Red Cross Society, of which he was made an honorary member in 1896.