William Henry (chemist)

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William Henry

William Henry (born December 12, 1774 in Manchester , † September 2, 1836 in Pendlebury ) was an English medic and chemist .

Live and act

William Henry was born to Thomas Henry (1734-1816), a pharmacist and chemist . In 1795 he began to study medicine in Edinburgh and received his doctorate in 1807 . The title of his dissertation was: De acido urico, et morbis a nimia ejus secretione ortis.

Due to his poor health, he soon gave up his work as a doctor and devoted himself primarily to chemical research, especially the behavior of gases. One of his best known publications (Phil. Trans., 1803) describes experimental investigations into the amount of gases absorbed in water and the influence of various pressures and temperatures on them. His results are best known today in the form of Henry's Law . Other of his publications dealt with gas analysis, fire fighting, luminous gas , the synthesis of hydrochloric acid and ammonia , bladder and gallstones as well as the disinfecting effect of heat. His Elements of Experimental Chemistry (1799) was very well received, and has been published in six editions, including Japanese, for over 30 years.

William Henry died near his birthplace in Manchester. Almost at the same time as John Dalton (1766-1844), Henry discovered Dalton's law on partial pressures (therefore also known as Henry Dalton's law). In 1802 he formulated Henry's law (Henry's law of absorption) on the solubility of gases in liquids, according to which the concentration of a gas in a liquid is directly proportional to the partial pressure of the corresponding gas above the liquid. This proportionality is expressed by Henry's constant .

Henry's findings play a.o. a. an important role in the field of diving medicine and in the physiology of volatile anesthetics .

In 1808 he identified methane (CH 4 ) as the flammable component of coal gas . He also showed that ammonia (NH 3 ) is free of oxygen .

Fonts

  • An Epitome of Chemistry. 1800. (later as Elements of Experimental Chemistry )
  • Dissertatio chemico-medica inauguralis, De acido urico, et morbis a nimia ejus secretione ortis: quam, annuente summo numine, ex auctoritate reverendi admodum viri. D. Georgii Baird: pro gradu doctoris. Excudebant Jac. Ballantyne, Edinburgh 1807.
  • Experiments on the Quantity of Gases Absorbed by Water, at Different Temperatures, and under Different Pressures. In: Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 93, 1803, pp. 29-42 and 274-276. doi: 10.1098 / rstl.1803.0004 ( full text )

literature

  • Walter J. Moore: Fundamentals of physical chemistry. de Gruyter, 1990, ISBN 3-11-009941-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter J. Moore: Fundamentals of physical chemistry. de Gruyter, 1990, p. 205.
personal data
SURNAME Henry, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English medic and chemist
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1774
PLACE OF BIRTH Manchester
DATE OF DEATH September 2, 1836
Place of death Pendlebury