Marceli Nencki

Wilhelm Marceli Nencki (15 January 1847 in Boczki, Zduńska Wola County – 14 October 1901 in Saint Petersburg) was a Polish chemist and medical doctor who lived in Congress Poland and other parts of the Russian Empire.

Nencki's main scientific interest concentrated on urea synthesis, the chemistry of purines and biological oxidation of aromatic compounds.

One of his achievements was for example demonstration that urea is formed in the organism from amino acids rather than being preformed on a protein molecule and that it is accompanied by binding of carbon dioxide.

He was the first to rigorously analyze the cause of smell in urine following eating asparagus, which he attributed to methanethiol.

[2] He made Phenyl salicylate or salol in 1886, and introduced it as a mild intestinal antiseptic (which it is not) .