Berthollet, Claude-Louis, count

(1748-1822)

   chemist

   Born in Talloires, Claude-Louis, count Berthollet was a chemist who made notable contributions to several areas of that discipline. He was educated at the University of Turin and, in 1785, proposed the use of chlorine as a bleaching agent. A noted scientist, Bertholett would later, after some period of doubt, become one of the first to support the theories of antoine de lavoisier, although he opposed his erroneous ideas that oxygen is the fundamental acidifying agent. With Lavoisier and others, Berthollet developed a new system of chemical nomenclature (1787) that is the basis for the present system. He also made significant contributions to the chemistry of explosives and to the field of metallurgy. His important work, Essai de statique chimique (2 volumes, 1803), presented his theories on chemical affinity and the reversibility of reactions. In 1780, Berthollet was named to the Academy of sciences, and in 1794, he became a professor at the École Normale in Paris. He was one of the scholars who accompanied Napoléon Bonaparte to Egypt in 1798, and in 1804, napoléon i, now emperor of the French, made him a senator and later a grand officer in the legion of honor and, under the Empire, a count. Berthollet was, with pierre de laplace, a cofounder of the Société d'Ar-cueil, a group of noted scientists and scholars who met regularly. He was named to the Academy of sciences in 1780.