Carl Wilhelm Scheele
Swedish German chemist who discovered oxygen · Sweden · Scientists · Lived 1742 to 1786 · aged 43
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Something wrong?He discovered oxygen but another chemist published first. He also isolated molybdenum, tungsten, barium, nitrogen, chlorine, and a catalog of acids that became the working vocabulary of early chemistry - then died of mercury poisoning at forty-three.
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Carl Wilhelm Scheele
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Carl Wilhelm Scheele by Johann Gottfried Scheffner (cropped)
Carl Wilhelm Scheele by Johann Gottfried Scheffner
Carl Wilhelm Scheele from Familj-Journalen1874
Carl Wilhelm Scheele in Köping
Carl Wilhelm Scheele monument
Carl Wilhelm Scheele x Erik Gustaf Göthe gipsIn their orbit
About this person
Carl Wilhelm Scheele was born 9 December 1742, a German speaker who spent his career as a pharmaceutical chemist in Sweden. He identified oxygen independently, though Joseph Priestley's publication came first. The same hands isolated molybdenum, tungsten, barium, nitrogen, and chlorine, then moved to organic acids: tartaric, oxalic, uric, lactic, citric. He found hydrofluoric, hydrocyanic, and arsenic acids as well. He spoke German among his fellow Swedish pharmacists and never switched. On 21 May 1786, doctors attributed his death to mercury poisoning - the cost of a life spent working directly with the elements he'd pulled into the light.
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