Accum, himself, gave fee-based public lectures in practical chemistry and collaborated with research efforts at numerous other institutes of science.

Judith was the daughter of a hat maker, who lived in the French community in Berlin, and the granddaughter of a refugee who suffered under the Huguenot persecutions in France.

[3] Friedrich Accum attended the Bückeburg Gymnasium Adolfinum and additionally received private tutelage in the subjects of French and English.

[6] After gaining experience as an assistant in the apothecary, Accum pursued scientific and medical studies at the School of Anatomy in Great Windmill Street in London.

Following his careful analysis of both types of sugar, Nicholson published a detailed report in the January edition of his journal, stating that there was no appreciable difference in taste between the two.

[9]For many years, Accum's establishment was the only significant institution in England that provided lectures on the theory of chemistry as well as training in laboratory practice.

Beginning in 1808, while at the Surrey Institution, Accum also published, a series of articles on the chemical properties and composition of mineral water in Alexander Tilloch's Philosophical Journal.

[17] In 1811, when the Parisian saltpetre manufacturer Bernard Courtois made iodine for the first time from the kelp ash, his discovery was greeted with great interest by experts.

With the advent of industrial means of production, not only were new textile halls physically larger, but they also had to be lit more brightly for longer periods of time.

Driven by great demand, and made possible through Lavoisier's theoretical work regarding the role of oxygen in combustion, the end of the 18th century saw a continuous series of improvements in lighting technology.

Other such experiments, though limited in depth, had been done by: George Dixon in 1780 in Cockfield, Jean-Pierre Minckelers in 1785 in Louvain, and Archibald Cochrane in 1787 at his estate Culross Abbey.

[22] Accum became involved with the production of gas for lighting purposes through the efforts of Friedrich Albert Winsor (1763–1830), another German émigré, who had been waging a longstanding publicity campaign.

The proliferation of newly discovered chemicals and the absence of laws moderating their use, made it possible for unscrupulous merchants to use them to boost profits at a cost to the public health.

[30] Accum alludes to his moral stance on food adulterations as he claims that: The man who robs a fellow subject of a few shillings on the high-way, is sentenced to death; while he who distributes a slow poison to a whole community, escapes punishment.

[32] The various chapters of the book alternate between harmless forgeries such as mixing dried pea grounds in coffee, and much more dangerous contamination by truly poisonous substances.

[33] He warned against bright green sweets sold by itinerant merchants in the streets of London as the colour was produced with "sapgreen", a colorant with high copper content.

"[35] Accum paid particular attention to beer, introducing the subject with the comment: "Malt beverages, and especially porter, the preferred drink of the inhabitants of London and other large cities, is among the items which is most frequently adulterated in the course of supply.

It became evident during the French Revolutionary Wars that the practice was getting out of hand, and Accum attributed the intoxicating power of the drink to the addition of this plant matter.

First, like Accum's earlier writings, it was written with descriptions of the simple techniques of analytical chemistry he employed, thereby making them more accessible to his readers.

Accum wrote in the foreword to his first edition: In stating the experimental proceedings necessary for the detection of the frauds which it has been my object to expose, I have confined myself to the task of pointing out such operations only as may be performed by persons unacquainted with chemical science; and it has been my purpose to express all necessary rules and instructions in the plainest language, divested of those recondite terms of science, which would be out of place in a work intended for general perusal.

[40] Accum was well aware before the publication of his book that mentioning specific names from London's business world would provoke a resistance and a possibly a severe reaction.

In the foreword to the first edition he called the publication of the names of those adulterating foodstuffs an "invidious office" and a "painful duty,"[41] which he undertook as a verification for his statements.

He further added that he wished to notify his hidden enemies that he would report for posterity the crimes these swindlers and their base associates had been found guilty of in public justice—that is, of having made basic foodstuffs poisonous.

[43] The process that ultimately led to Accum's departure from England and return to Germany began a few months after the publication of his book on the poisoning of foodstuffs.

[48] The letter was signed "A.C", and Cole supposed that the author was the surgeon Anthony Carlisle, who had been friends with Accum since the first years of the latter's stay in London.

[54] The first biographical sketch of Friedrich Accum's life was written by the American agricultural chemist and historian of science Charles Albert Browne, Jr. in 1925.

His enthusiasm for the subject was so great that he traveled to Germany in July 1930 to meet with Hugo Otto Georg Hans Westphal (26 August 1873 – 15 September 1934), a great-grandson of Accum's.

Brown's last writing on the subject, which appeared in 1948 in Chymia, a journal for the history of chemistry, relied to a great extent on the information he gathered from Hans Westphal.

Lawson Cockroft of the Royal Society of Chemistry in London observed that Friedrich Accum was one of those chemists who, despite significant achievements in his lifetime, was by and large forgotten today.

A certificate from the Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde (society of natural philosophical friends), based in Berlin and granting honorary membership to Accum, dated 1 November 1814, was made available online in 2006.