[1] However, the exact extent of Wöhler's role in diminishing the belief in vitalism is considered by some to be questionable.

During his time at the gymnasium, Wöhler began chemical experimentation in a home laboratory provided by his father.

[5][6] On 2 September 1823, Wöhler passed his examinations as a Doctor of Medicine, Surgery, and Obstetrics at Heidelberg University, having studied in the laboratory of chemist Leopold Gmelin.

Gmelin encouraged him to focus on chemistry and arranged for Wöhler to conduct research under the direction of chemist Jacob Berzelius in Stockholm, Sweden.

[5][7] Wöhler's time in Stockholm with Berzelius marked the beginning of a long personal and professional relationship between the two scientists.

Using this improved method, Wöhler isolated aluminium powder in pure form on 22 October 1827.

[15] He achieved these preparations by heating the anhydrous chlorides of beryllium and yttrium with potassium metal.

[18] Wöhler, working with French chemist Sainte Claire Deville, isolated the element boron in a crystalline form.

He prepared the first samples of boron nitride by melting together boric acid and potassium cyanide.

In a letter to Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius the same year, he wrote, 'In a manner of speaking, I can no longer hold my chemical water.

It was the beginning of the end for one popular vitalist hypothesis, the idea that "organic" compounds could be made only by living things.

[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] Contrary to what was thought in Wöhler's time, cyanate is not a purely inorganic anion, as it is formed in various metabolic pathways.

[32] Thus the conversion of ammonium cyanate into urea was not an example of production of an organic compound from an inorganic precursor.

This practice was later adopted around the world, becoming the chemistry lab co-requisite that is required at most universities today.

This practice became nearly universal, normalizing the undergraduate and graduate-level research that is a requirement for numerous degrees today.

[34] Wöhler's notable research students included chemists Georg Ludwig Carius, Heinrich Limpricht, Rudolph Fittig, Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe, Albert Niemann, Vojtěch Šafařík, Wilhelm Kühne, and Augustus Voelcker.

[9] On the 100th anniversary of Wöhler's death, the West German government issued a stamp depicting the structure of urea with its synthesis formula listed directly below.

After Franziska's death, he married Julie Pfeiffer (1813–1886) in 1834,[41] with whom he had four daughters: Fanny, Helene, Emilie, and Pauline.