Scheele, Carl Wilhelm

18th Century
Born: Stralsund (Sweden), 9 December 1742 
Died: Köping (Sweden), 21 May 1786
At the age of fourteen Scheele was apprenticed to an apothecary in Gothenburg and later in Malmö where he started to conduct chemical experiments. While working in a pharmacy in Uppsala in 1770 he was introduced to the leading Swedish chemist of that time T.O. Bergman. Scheele received advice and help from Bergman but never formally studied chemistry. Nevertheless, he became one of the greatest experimental chemists of all times discovering new elements and substances in greater variety than any other person before him. He was involved in the discovery of the elements and simple compounds of chlorine, fluorine, manganese, barium, molybdenum, tungsten and oxygen. It has been established that Scheele’s discovery of oxygen took place in 1771, or before Priestley and Lavoisier. Scheele published his studies mostly in the proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm which called the self-made scientist to be its full member. Due to the significant achievements in inorganic chemistry, Scheele’s accomplishments in organic chemistry are often overlooked. He was the first one to separate and characterise organic acids such as tartaric, citric, benzoic, malic and oxalic. Since 1775 Scheele worked as an apothecary in a small town of Köping where he also died at the early age of 43 years. His death may have been caused by long-term exposure to highly toxic substances such as arsenic acid and hydrogen cyanide which also belong to the compounds first prepared by Scheele.