Background
Pierre Auguste Adet was born on May 17, 1763, in Nevers, France.
Pierre Auguste Adet ambassador to the United States.
The meeting chamber of the corps législatif, published in Le journal illustré, 1869.
chemist Diplomat physician politician
Pierre Auguste Adet was born on May 17, 1763, in Nevers, France.
In 1789, Pierre Adet participated in the founding of the Annales de chimie, which was designed to permit easy publication of papers on antiphlogistic chemistry since, at that time, the Journal de physique was opposed to the new doctrines. Adet was one of the editors for several years and in this capacity published a number of translations of English papers in the journal and a few' original works. He was, then, a keen supporter of the “new chemistry” from his early years; further evidence of this may be found in the appendix that he added to his translation of Priestley’s Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston and the Decomposition of Water, in which he replied to a number of Priestley’s arguments (1797).
Adet was also interested in other reforms in chemistry and, to supplement the new system of chemical nomenclature that was being developed, he and Hassenfratz, Lavoisier’s assistant, proposed a new system of chemical symbols. In it, a symbol indicated not merely the identity of the substance but its physical state, the proportion of oxygen it contained (as in sulfurous and sulfuric acids) and, if it was a salt, the extent to which the acid had been neutralized by the base. The system was never generally adopted, however, perhaps because of its complexity.
Adet’s last published work before the Revolution, when he became much more involved in politics, was on stannic chloride (1789). He then became a colonial administrator and, while in Santo Domingo in 1791, investigated pineapple juice, in which he believed he had found both citric and malic acids. He could not confirm the presence of citric acid, however, because someone threw away his liquids.
In 1798 Adet investigated “acetous” and acetic acids. When verdigris is heated strongly, one of the products is a very concentrated acetic acid, which was known as “radical vinegar.” No acid as concentrated as this could be obtained from vinegar, so it was thought that two acids existed—acetous acid (vinegar) and acetic acid (radical vinegar), which contained a higher proportion of oxygen. Adet was unable to oxidize “acetous acid” to acetic acid, but obtained acetic acid when he distilled “acetites” with concentrated sulfuric acid. He therefore concluded that the acids differed only in the proportion of water they contained. Although this conclusion was not widely accepted, it was confirmed by Proust in 1802.
After 1803, when he became prefect of the Nièvre, Adet seems to have published nothing of consequence apart from his textbook, Leçons élémentaires de chimie (1804). This had the distinction of being translated into modem Greek, but nonetheless was not a work of outstanding merit.
He died in Paris on 19 March 1834.
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Although Adet was docteur-régent of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, his life was devoted to politics rather than to science. Adet was deeply interested in chemistry but it was, nevertheless, only a spare-time pursuit.