Justus von Liebig
Born	(1803-05-12)12 May 1803 Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse
Died	18 April 1873(1873-04-18) (aged 69) Munich, German Empire
Residence	Grand Duchy of Hesse, then German Empire
Nationality	Hessian, then German
Fields	Chemistry
Institutions	University of Giessen University of Munich
Alma mater	University of Bonn University of Erlangen
Doctoral advisor	Karl Wilhelm Gottlob Kastner
Doctoral students	Carl Schmidt Nikolay Zinin Victor Regnault Carl von Voit Hermann von Fehling Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp August Kekulé August von Hofmann Lyon Playfair Emil Erlenmeyer Moritz Traube Adolph Strecker Wilhelm Henneberg
Other notable students	Augustus Voelcker[1]
Known for	Discovery of Nitrogen Law of the Minimum Liebig condenser

Justus Freiherr von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 18 April 1873) was a German chemist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and worked on the organization of organic chemistry. As a professor, he devised the modern laboratory-oriented teaching method, and for such innovations, he is regarded as one of the greatest chemistry teachers of all time. He is known as the "father of the fertilizer industry" for his discovery of nitrogen as an essential plant nutrient, and his formulation of the Law of the Minimum which described the effect of individual nutrients on crops. He also developed a manufacturing process for beef extracts, and founded a company, Liebig Extract of Meat Company, that later trademarked the Oxo brand beef bouillon cube.

Biography[link]

Liebig was born in Darmstadt into a middle class family. From childhood he was fascinated by chemistry. At the age of 13, Liebig lived through the year without a summer, when the majority of food-crops in the northern hemisphere were destroyed by a volcanic winter. Germany was among the hardest-hit in the global famine that ensued, and the experience is said to have shaped Liebig's later work. Thanks in part to Liebig's innovations in fertilizers and agriculture, the 1816 famine became known as "the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world".^[2]

Liebig was apprenticed to the apothecary Gottfried Pirsch (1792–1870) in Heppenheim and attended the University of Bonn, studying under Karl Wilhelm Gottlob Kastner, a business associate of his father. When Kastner moved to the University of Erlangen, Liebig followed him and later took his doctorate from Erlangen. Liebig did not receive the doctorate until well after he had left Erlangen, and the circumstances are clouded by a possible scandal [see Munday (1990)]. Liebig left Erlangen in March 1822, in part because of his involvement with the radical Korps Rhenania (a nationalist student organization) but also because of his hopes for more advanced chemical studies.

In autumn 1822 Liebig went to study in Paris on a grant obtained for him by Kastner from the Hessian government. He worked in the private laboratory of Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, and was also befriended by Alexander von Humboldt and Georges Cuvier (1769–1832).

After leaving Paris, Liebig returned to Darmstadt and married Henriette Moldenhauer, the daughter of a state official. This ended Liebig's relationship with Platen.

In 1824 at the age of 21 and with Humboldt's recommendation, Liebig became a professor at the University of Giessen. He established the world's first major school of chemistry there. He received an appointment from the King of Bavaria to the University of Munich in 1852, where he remained until his death in 1873 in Munich. He became Freiherr (baron) in 1845. He is buried in the Alter Südfriedhof in Munich.

He founded and edited from 1832 the journal Annalen der Chemie, which became the leading German-language journal of Chemistry. The volumes from his lifetime are often referenced just as Liebigs Annalen; and following his death the title was officially changed to Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie.

He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1837.

The young Liebig: 1843 lithograph after an 1821 painting (Liebighaus)

Research and development[link]

Liebig improved organic analysis with the Kaliapparat – a five-bulb device that used a potassium hydroxide solution to remove the organic combustion product carbon dioxide.^[3] He downplayed the role of humus in plant nutrition and discovered that plants feed on nitrogen compounds and carbon dioxide derived from the air, as well as on minerals in the soil. One of his most recognized and far-reaching accomplishments was the invention of nitrogen-based fertilizer. Liebig believed that nitrogen must be supplied to plant roots in the form of ammonia, and recognized the possibility of substituting chemical fertilizers for natural (animal dung, etc.) ones. Nitrogen fertilizers are now widely used throughout the world, and their production is a substantial segment of the chemical industry. He also formulated the Law of the Minimum, stating that a plant's development is limited by the one essential mineral that is in the relatively shortest supply, visualized as "Liebig's barrel". This concept is a qualitative version of the principles used to determine the application of fertilizer in modern agriculture.

He was also one of the first chemists to organize a laboratory as we know it today. His novel method of organic analysis made it possible for him to direct the analytical work of many graduate students. The vapor condensation device he popularized for his research is still known as a Liebig condenser, although it was in common use long before Liebig's research began. Liebig's students were from many of the German states as well as Britain and the United States, and they helped create an international reputation for their Doktorvater.

In 1835 he invented a process for silvering that greatly improved the utility of mirrors.

Liebig's work on applying chemistry to plant and animal physiology was especially influential. At a time when many chemists such as Jöns Jakob Berzelius insisted on a hard and fast separation between the organic and inorganic, Liebig argued that "...the production of all organic substances no longer belongs just to the organism. It must be viewed as not only probable but as certain that we shall produce them in our laboratories. Sugar, salicin [aspirin], and morphine will be artificially produced." [Liebig and Woehler (1838)]

Liebig's arguments against any chemical distinction between living (physiological) and dead chemical processes proved a great inspiration to several of his students and others who were interested in materialism. Though Liebig distanced himself from the direct political implications of materialism, he tacitly supported the work of Karl Vogt (1817–1895), Jacob Moleschott (1822–1893), and Ludwig Buechner (1824–1899).

German stamp picturing Justus von Liebig, 1953

Liebig played a more direct role in reforming politics in the German states through his promotion of science-based agriculture and the publication of John Stuart Mill's Logic. Through Liebig's close friendship with the Vieweg family publishing house, he arranged for his former student Jacob Schiel (1813–1889) to translate Mill's important work for German publication. Liebig liked Mill's Logic in part because it promoted science as a means to social and political progress, but also because Mill featured several examples of Liebig's research as an ideal for the scientific method. Liebig is also credited with the notion that "searing meat seals in the juices."^[4] This idea, still widely believed, is not true.

Working with Belgian engineer George Giebert, Liebig devised an efficient method of producing beef extract from carcasses. In 1865, they founded the Liebig Extract of Meat Company, marketing the extract as a cheap, nutritious alternative to real meat. Some years after Liebig's death, in 1899, the product was trademarked "Oxo".

Liebig is also credited with the invention of Marmite because of his discovery that yeast could be concentrated.^[5][6]

After World War II, the University of Giessen was officially renamed after him, "Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen". In 1953 the West German post office issued a stamp in his honor.^[7]

Major works[link]

• Organic Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology (1840)
• Organic Chemistry in its Application to Physiology and Pathology (1842)
• Familiar Letters on Chemistry (1843)

See also[link]

• History of soil science
• List of chemists

Notes[link]

References[link]

• William H. Brock, Justus von Liebig: The Chemical Gatekeeper (Cambridge University Press, 1997). See also William H. Brock.
• Rosenfeld, Louis (2003), "Justus Liebig and animal chemistry.", Clin. Chem. 49 (10): 1696–707, 2003 Oct, DOI:10.1373/49.10.1696, PMID 14500604 
• Kirschke, Martin (2003), "Liebig, his university professor Karl Wilhelm Gottlob Kastner (1783–1857) and his problematic relation with romantic natural philosophy.", Ambix 50 (1): 3–24, 2003 Mar, PMID 12921103 
• Buttner, J (2000), "Justus von Liebig and his influence on clinical chemistry.", Ambix 47 (2): 96–117, 2000 Jul, PMID 11640225 
• Thomas, U (1988), "Philipp Lorenz Geiger and Justus Liebig.", Ambix 35 (2): 77–90, PMID 11621581 
• Guggenheim, K Y (1985), "Johannes Müller and Justus Liebig on nutrition.", Korot 8 (11–12): 66–76, PMID 11614053 
• Sonntag, O (1977), "Religion and science in the thought of Liebig", Ambix 24 (3): 159–69, 1977 Nov, PMID 11610495 
• Glas, E (1976), "The Liebig-Mulder controversy. On the methodology of physiological chemistry", Janus; revue internationale de l'histoire des sciences, de la médecine, de la pharmacie, et de la technique 63 (1–2–3): 27–46, PMID 11610199 
• Sonntag, O (1974), "Liebig on Francis Bacon and the utility of science", Annals of science 31 (5): 373–86, 1974 Sep, DOI:10.1080/00033797400200331, PMID 11615416 
• Kempler, K (1973), "[Justus Liebig]", Orvosi hetilap 114 (22): 1312–7, 1973 Jun 3, PMID 4576434 
• Halmai, J (1963), "Justus Liebig", Orvosi hetilap 104: 1523–4, 1963 Aug 11, PMID 13952197 
• Berghoff, E (1954), "Justus von Liebig, founder of physiological chemistry", Wien. Klin. Wochenschr. 66 (23): 401–2, 1954 Jun 11, PMID 13187963 
• Schmidt, F (1953), "To Justus von Liebig on his 150th birthday, 12 May 1953", Pharmazie 8 (5): 445–6, 1953 May, PMID 13088290 
• Schneider, W (1953), "Justus von Liebig and the Archiv der Pharmazie; in memory of Liebig's birthday, 12 May 1803", Archiv der Pharmazie und Berichte der Deutschen Pharmazeutischen Gesellschaft 286 (4): 165–72, PMID 13081110 
• G. F. Knapp (1903), "Zur Hundertsten Wiederkehr: Justus von Liebig nach dem Leben gezeichnet", Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft 36 (2): 1315–1330, DOI:10.1002/cber.19030360202. 
• Georg Freiherr von Liebig (1890), "Nekrolog: Justus von Liebig. Eigenhändige biographische Aufzeichnungen", Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft 23 (3): 817–828, DOI:10.1002/cber.18900230391. 
• "Zur Erinnerung an Justus von Liebig", Journal für Praktische Chemie 8 (1): 428–458, 1873, DOI:10.1002/prac.18740080148. 

External links[link]

• Familiar Letters on Chemistry at librivox.org
• Works by Justus von Liebig at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Justus von Liebig in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Justus Liebig, German chemist (1803–73) from the Encyclopædia Britannica, 10th Edition (1902).
• The National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame
• Texts on Wikisource:
  • “Justus Liebig,” The Chemical News, 1873
  • "Justus von Liebig". Popular Science Monthly 40. March 1892. 
  • "Liebig, Justus von". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. 
  • "Liebig, Justus von". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 

Justus
Archbishop of Canterbury
Gravestone marking the burial site of Justus in St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury
Province	Canterbury
Diocese	Diocese of Canterbury
See	Archbishop of Canterbury
Appointed	624
Reign ended	on 10 November between 627 and 631
Predecessor	Mellitus
Successor	Honorius
Other posts	Bishop of Rochester
Orders
Consecration	604 by Augustine of Canterbury
Personal details
Died	on 10 November between 627 to 631
Buried	St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury[1]
Sainthood
Feast day	10 November
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church Roman Catholic Church[2] Anglican Communion
Canonized	Pre-congregation, prior to formal canonization process
Attributes	archbishop carrying a Primatial cross[3]
Patronage	Volterra, Italy
Shrines	St Augustine's, Canterbury

Justus (occasionally Iustus;^[4] died on 10 November between 627 and 631) was the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury. He was sent from Italy to England by Pope Gregory the Great, on a mission to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism, probably arriving with the second group of missionaries despatched in 601. Justus became the first Bishop of Rochester in 604, and attended a church council in Paris in 614.

Following the death of King Æthelberht of Kent in 616, Justus was forced to flee to Gaul, but was reinstated in his diocese the following year. In 624 Justus became Archbishop of Canterbury, overseeing the despatch of missionaries to Northumbria. After his death he was revered as a saint, and had a shrine in St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury.

Arrival in Britain[link]

The evangelist portrait of Luke, from the St. Augustine Gospels (c. 6th-century), which may have accompanied Justus to Britain.

Justus was an Italian and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England by Pope Gregory I. Almost everything known about Justus and his career is derived from the early 8th-century Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum of Bede.^[5] As Bede does not describe Justus' origins, nothing is known about him prior to his arrival in England. He probably arrived in England with the second group of missionaries, sent at the request of Augustine of Canterbury in 601.^[5][6] Some modern writers describe Justus as one of the original missionaries who arrived with Augustine in 597,^[7] but Bede believed that Justus came in the second group.^[8][9] The second group included Mellitus, who later became Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury.^[10]

If Justus was a member of the second group of missionaries, then he arrived with a gift of books and "all things which were needed for worship and the ministry of the Church".^[11][12] A 15th-century Canterbury chronicler, Thomas of Elmham, claimed that there were a number of books brought to England by that second group still at Canterbury in his day, although he did not identify them. An investigation of extant Canterbury manuscripts shows that one possible survivor is the St. Augustine Gospels, now in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Manuscript (MS) 286.^[5][a]

Bishop of Rochester[link]

Augustine consecrated Justus as a bishop in 604, over a province including the Kentish town of Rochester.^[15] The historian Nicholas Brooks argues that the choice of Rochester was probably not because it had been a Roman-era bishopric, but rather because of its importance in the politics of the time. Although the town was small, with just one street, it was at the junction of Watling Street and the estuary of the Medway, and was thus a fortified town.^[16] Because Justus was probably not a monk (he was not called that by Bede),^[17] his cathedral clergy was very likely non-monastic too.^[18]

A charter purporting to be from King Æthelberht, dated 28 April 604, survives in the Textus Roffensis, as well as a copy based on the Textus in the 14th-century Liber Temporalium. Written mostly in Latin but using an Old English boundary clause, the charter records a grant of land near the city of Rochester to Justus' church.^[19][20] Among the witnesses is Laurence, Augustine's future successor, but not Augustine himself. The text turns to two different addressees. First, Æthelberht is made to admonish his son Eadbald, who had been established as a sub-ruler in the region of Rochester. The grant itself is addressed directly to Saint Andrew, the patron saint of the church,^[21] a usage parallelled by other charters in the same archive.^[22]

Historian Wilhelm Levison, writing in 1946, was sceptical about the authenticity of this charter.^[22] In particular, he felt that the two separate addresses were incongruous and suggested that the first address, occurring before the preamble, may have been inserted by someone familiar with Bede to echo Eadbald's future conversion (see below).^[22] A more recent and more positive appraisal by John Morris argues that the charter and its witness list are authentic because it incorporates titles and phraseology that had fallen out of use by 800.^[23]

Æthelberht built Justus a cathedral church in Rochester; the foundations of a nave and chancel partly underneath the present-day Rochester Cathedral may date from that time.^[8] What remains of the foundations of an early rectangular building near the southern part of the current cathedral might also be contemporary with Justus or may be part of a Roman building.^[16]

Together with Mellitus, the Bishop of London, Justus signed a letter written by Archbishop Laurence of Canterbury to the Irish bishops urging the native church to adopt the Roman method of calculating the date of Easter. This letter also mentioned the fact that Irish missionaries, such as Dagan, had refused to share meals with the missionaries.^[24] Although the letter has not survived, Bede quoted from parts of it.^[25]

In 614, Justus attended the Council of Paris, held by the Frankish king, Chlothar II.^[26] It is unclear why Justus and Peter, the abbot of Sts Peter and Paul in Canterbury,^[b] were present. It may have been just chance, but historian James Campbell has suggested that Chlothar summoned clergy from Britain to attend in an attempt to assert overlordship over Kent.^[27] The historian N. J. Higham offers another explanation for their attendance, arguing that Æthelberht sent the pair to the council because of shifts in Frankish policy towards the Kentish kingdom, which threatened Kentish independence, and that the two clergymen were sent to negotiate a compromise with Chlothar.^[28]

A pagan backlash against Christianity followed Æthelberht's death in 616, forcing Justus and Mellitus to flee to Gaul.^[10] The pair probably took refuge with Chlothar, hoping that the Frankish king would intervene and restore them to their sees,^[25] and by 617 Justus had been reinstalled in his bishopric by the new king.^[5] Mellitus also returned to England, but the prevailing pagan mood did not allow him to return to London; after Laurence's death, Mellitus became Archbishop of Canterbury.^[29] According to Bede, Justus received letters of encouragement from Pope Boniface V (619–625), as did Mellitus, although Bede does not record the actual letters. The historian J. M. Wallace-Hadrill assumes that both letters were general statements of encouragement to the missionaries.^[30]

Archbishop[link]

Justus became Archbishop of Canterbury in 624,^[31] receiving his pallium—the symbol of the jurisdiction entrusted to archbishops—from Pope Boniface V, following which Justus consecrated Romanus as his successor at Rochester.^[5] Boniface also gave Justus a letter congratulating him on the conversion of King "Aduluald" (probably King Eadbald of Kent), a letter which is included in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum.^[32] Bede's account of Eadbald's conversion states that it was Laurence, Justus' predecessor at Canterbury, who converted the King to Christianity, but the historian D. P. Kirby argues that the letter's reference to Eadbald makes it likely that it was Justus.^[33] Other historians, including Barbara Yorke and Henry Mayr-Harting, conclude that Bede's account is correct, and that Eadbald was converted by Laurence.^[34] Yorke argues that there were two kings of Kent during Eadbald's reign, Eadbald and Æthelwald, and that Æthelwald was the "Aduluald" referred to by Boniface. Yorke argues that Justus converted Æthelwald back to Christianity after Æthelberht's death.^[35]

Justus consecrated Paulinus as the first Bishop of York, before the latter accompanied Æthelburg of Kent to Northumbria for her marriage to King Edwin of Northumbria.^[5] Bede records Justus as having died on 10 November, but does not give a year, although it is likely to have between 627 and 631.^[31][36] After his death, Justus was regarded as a saint, and was given a feast day of 10 November.^[37] The ninth century Stowe Missal commemorates his feast day, along with Mellitus and Laurence.^[38] In the 1090s, his remains were translated, or ritually moved, to a shrine beside the high altar of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. At about the same time, a Life was written about him by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, as well as a poem by Reginald of Canterbury.^[1][c] Other material from Thomas of Elmham, Gervase of Canterbury, and William of Malmesbury, later medieval chroniclers, adds little to Bede's account of Justus' life.^[5]

See also[link]

Saints portal

• List of members of the Gregorian mission

Notes[link]

Citations[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Justus entry at the Prosopography of Anglo Saxon England project

69286 von Liebig is a main belt asteroid with an orbital period of 1573.7227469 days (4.31 years).^[1]

The asteroid was discovered on October 10, 1990.

References[link]

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