Karl Friedrich August Rammelsberg

He was educated for the medical profession and graduated in 1837 at Berlin University. In 1841 he became privatdozent in the university, and in 1845 professor extra-ordinary of chemistry. He relinquished this post in 1851 to take the chair of chemistry and mineralogy at the Royal Industrial Institute. In 1874 he was appointed professor of inorganic chemistry, and director of the second chemical laboratory at Berlin.

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Distinguished for his researches on mineralogy, crystallography and analytical chemistry, he laboured also at metallurgy, and yet found time for a series of important textbooks, in which his learning and sound judgment were combined with a lucid and accurate statement of facts. He was author of:

• Handworterbuch des chemischen Teils der Mineralogie (2 vols, 1841; supp. 1843-53)
• Lehrbuch der chemischen Metallurgie (1850)
• Handbuch der Krystallographischen Chemie (1855)
• Handbuch der Mineralchemie (1860)
• Handbuch der Krystallographisch-physikalischen Chemie (2 vols, 1881-82), some of the earlier works being incorporated in later and more comprehensive volumes with different titles.

A nickel arsenide mineral named rammelsbergite is named after him. He died at Gross Lichterfelde, near Berlin, on the 28th of December 1899.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.