Wilhelm Homberg

Wilhelm Homberg ( born January 8, 1652 Batavia, now Jakarta, † September 24, 1715 in Paris) was a German naturalist.

Life

Coming from a family of Quedlinburg, Homberg came as a youth to Europe and studied law in Jena and Leipzig. In 1674 he settled as a lawyer in Magdeburg, dealt with botany, astronomy and physics and finally gave up his job to undertake study tours through Italy, France, Holland and England. Back in Quedlinburg, he became in 1676 a doctorate at the University of Wittenberg MD, toured Germany and Scandinavia and visited mines in Saxony, Bohemia, Hungary and Sweden. Homberg was in Stockholm counselor to the royal physician Urban Hjärne and followed in 1682 the offer of Colbert, to settle in France. Since 1685 he held for several years a successful practice in Rome, was after his return to Paris as one of the greatest scholars of his time and was admitted to the Académie Royale des Sciences in 1691. Homberg joined in 1702 entered the service of Duke Philip II of Orléans in 1705 and whose personal physician and one of the three chemistry representing pension Aires the Académie Royale des Sciences. He has published in the " Mémoires " of the Académie contributions to botany, zoology, medicine, physics and chemistry as well as general considerations in his Essais de Chimie ( 1702-09 ).

Homberg discovered the " Hombergsche phosphorus " ( calcium chloride ) and boric acid.