Auguste André Thomas Cahours

August André Thomas Cahours (1813–1891) was a French chemist and scientist whose contribution to organic chemistry was one of the greatest in history.

He discovered, among other things, the processes of synthesis of several chemical molecules, including toluene, xylene, several organo-magnesiums, and derivatives of phosphine and arsine.

He was the first of the two children of Rose Adelaide Cartront and André Cahours, who was an official at the French Ministry of Finance before becoming a tailor.

He attended his neighborhood high school before being admitted to the École Polytechnique in 1833, from where he obtained his diploma in 1835 and where he subsequently returned as a chemistry professor.

After graduating, he went up in the ranks of the French Army Corps, which he quickly and suddenly abandoned to concentrate on his interest in scientific research.

He became, after his time in the army, the pupil of the renowned chemist Michel Eugene Chevreul and became his "preparer", a post he held for four years at the National Museum of Natural History from 1836 onwards.

In 1839, he was transferred to the private laboratory of Jean Baptiste André Dumas, who in the same year appointed him a "repeater" at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures.

In fact, Cahours' work was oriented in three directions during his career: In Dumas’ laboratory, he studied potato essence.

Auguste Cahours also worked on organometallics and showed that several substances, including tin, naturally sought to adopt a saturated configuration (SnX4).