Background
Martin Heinrich Klaproth was born on December 1, 1743, in Wernigerode, Germany. He was the third son of Johann Julius Klaproth, a poor but respected tailor with pietistic leanings.
1795
Royal Society, London, England
Klaproth was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1795.
1804
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden
Klaproth was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1804.
Crater on the Moon was named after Klaproth.
A portrait of Klaproth.
Martin Heinrich Klaproth was born on December 1, 1743, in Wernigerode, Germany. He was the third son of Johann Julius Klaproth, a poor but respected tailor with pietistic leanings.
Klaproth was at first intended for the clergy. Shortly after his fifteenth birthday, however, an unpleasant incident apparently forced him to drop out of Wernigerode’s Latin school.
Deciding to take up pharmacy, probably because of its connection with the natural sciences, Klaproth became an apprentice in a Quedlinburg apothecary shop in 1759. His master worked him hard, giving him little if any, theoretical training and less spare time. In 1766, two years after becoming a journeyman, he moved, in the same capacity, to Hannover. There, at last, he had the opportunity to begin transcending pharmacy. Choosing chemistry, he read the texts of J. F. Cartheuser and J. R. Spielmann and conducted many minor investigations. After two years in Hannover, followed by two and a half years in Berlin and a few months in Danzig, Klaproth settled at Berlin in 1771. During his first decade there he supported himself by managing the apothecary shop of a deceased friend, the minor chemist Valentin Rose the elder. In 1780 he finally gained self-sufficiency - a fortunate marriage enabled him to purchase his own shop.
In the meantime Klaproth had continued his pursuit of chemistry, studying not only by himself but also, it seems, with Marggraf. He ventured into print for the first time in 1776 when a friend persuaded him to contribute a chapter on the chemical properties of copal to a book on the natural history of that resinous substance. By 1780 he felt sufficiently knowledgeable to request permission to give private lectures on chemistry under the auspices of Berlin’s Medical-Surgical College. The college’s professors, who were eager to avoid such competition for student fees, blocked his request. In 1782, after publishing several articles on chemical topics and securing the backing of influential Masonic brothers, Klaproth was in a stronger position. That year he was named to the second seat for pharmacy on Prussia’s highest medical board and soon afterward was granted permission to lecture on chemistry. Thus, at the relatively advanced age of thirty-nine, he embarked on his administrative and teaching career.
Over the years Klaproth moved up in the Prussian medical bureacracy from assessor (1782-1797) to councillor (1797-1799), to high councillor (1799-1817). Meanwhile, he secured teaching posts, serving as private lecturer at the Medical-Surgical College (1782-1810); teacher of chemistry at the Mining School (1784-1817); professor of chemistry at G. F. von Tempelhoff’s Artillery School and its successors, the Royal Artillery Academy and the General War School (1787-1812); and full professor of chemistry in the University of Berlin’s Philosophical Faculty (1810-1817). In 1800 Klaproth was appointed to succeed F. K. Achard as the Berlin Academy’s representative for chemistry. No longer needing his apothecary shop, he sold it at a handsome profit and moved into the academy’s new laboratory-residence complex in 1803. Here Klaproth, the tailor’s son who once could only “suffer and hope,” worked until his death.
Working with minerals from all parts of the globe, Klaproth discovered or co-discovered zirconium (1789), uranium (1789), titanium (1792), strontium (1793), chromium (1797), mellitic acid (1799), and cerium (1803) and confirmed prior discoveries of tellurium (1798) and beryllium (1798). More consequential than these specific results were Klaproth’s new techniques. For instance, he found that many particularly insoluble minerals could be dissolved if they were first ground to a fine powder and then fused with a carbonate. With his student Valentin Rose the younger he introduced the use of barium nitrate in the decomposition of silicates.
Besides his influence as an analyst, Klaproth played a role of some consequence in the German acceptance of Lavoisier’s theory. In the spring of 1792, after studying his friend S. F. Hermbstàdt’s manuscript translation of Lavoisier’s Traité and repeating some of its main experiments, he announced his tentative support for the antiphlogistic system. During the ensuing year, he often joined with Hermbstadt in repeating the reduction of mercuric oxide before skeptical and important witnesses. By the summer of 1793, they had discredited F. A. C. Gren and other phlogistonists who denied the accuracy of Lavoisier’s account of the experiment, thereby preparing the way for the success of the antiphlogistic revolution in Germany. In the remaining decades of his life, however, Klaproth avoided taking an active part in the theoretical development of chemistry.
Klaproth constantly drew attention to the necessity of either avoiding or making allowances for contamination from apparatus and reagents. Most significant, he broke with the tradition of ignoring “small” losses and gains in weight in analytical work. Instead, he used discrepancies over a few percentage points as a means of detecting faulty and incomplete analyses. Once satisfied with his procedure for analyzing a mineral, he reported his final results - including the remaining discrepancy. This practice became a convention with the next generation of analysts.
Klaproth was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1795 and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1804.
Royal Society , England
1795
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences , Sweden
1804
In 1780 Klaproth married a niece of A. S. Marggraf. His son Julius became a famous orientalist.
Professor