Paul Schützenberger

He was intended for a medical career and graduated MD from the University of Strasbourg in 1855, but his interests laid in physical and chemical sciences.

In 1853 he went to Paris as preparateur to JF Persoz (1805–1868), professor of chemistry at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers.

A year later he was entrusted with a course of chemical instruction at Mulhouse, and he remained in that town until 1865 as professor at the École Supérieure des Sciences.

During the period he spent at Mulhouse, Schützenberger paid special attention to industrial chemistry, particularly in connection with colouring matters, but he also worked at general and biological chemistry which subsequently occupied the greater part of his time.

Towards the end of his life he adopted the view that the elements have been formed by some process of condensation from one primordial substance of extremely small atomic weight, and he expressed the conviction that atomic weights within narrow limits are variable and modified according to the physical conditions in which a compound is formed.