Johan Gottschalk Wallerius

Johan Gottschalk Wallerius ( born July 11, 1709 Stora Mellösa, Orebro, † November 16, 1785 in Uppsala ) was a Swedish chemist and mineralogist.

Life and work

Wallerius began in 1725 at Uppsala University to study mathematics, physics and medicine. 1731, he received his doctorate in philosophical master. He continued his medical training continued in Lund, where he was an adjunct in 1732 and in 1735 Doctor of Medicine.

Wallerius received 1749 first the newly established chair of chemistry, metallurgy and pharmacy at the University of Uppsala. Two years later, he coined the now well-established conceptual distinction of Sciences in a pure and an applied form. Due to a disease he had to give up the chair in 1767. In relation to the chemistry he created the concept of the pair chemia pura and chemia applicata. So he took an important step in the upgrade disparagingly as " pure craft " and " dirty " frowned upon chemistry, both academically and socially by then.

The historical importance of this distinction becomes clear only on the background of social upheaval during the Enlightenment, in which the old, purely spiritual ideal of science gave way to a new, bourgeois science concept. The idea of ​​a practical science got along better with the new rational ideas of an "active progress" and the Community usefulness of knowledge, as the hitherto usual sharp distinction between pure science and art. Wallerius therefore had a considerable share in resolving the dispute methods in the 18th century about the new legitimacy of Sciences.

As the owner of a farm in Alsike, in the church today Knivsta, he worked intensively on agriculture. His statistical work Observationer vid åkerbruket gjorda i 30 år ( "Observations on agriculture carried out over 30 years," 1747-1777 ) with tables for sowing time, harvest time and yield explained his success, although some farms around recorded crop failures simultaneously.

Wallerius was a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences ( since 1750 ), the Society of Sciences in Uppsala ( since 1763 ) and the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg ( since 1773 ).

Other Works (selection)

• Mineralogia, eller mineralriket indelt och beskrifvet, 1747
• Agriculturae fundamenta chemica, 1761
• Tankar om laughed denes i synnerhet jordenes danande och ändring, 1776

• Chemists ( 18th century )
• Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
• University teachers ( Uppsala University )
• Member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala
• Swede
• Born in 1709
• Died in 1785
• Man