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When considering the fathers of modern chemistry, we must never forget to include Jons Jakob Berzelius. A disciple of John Dalton, he developed the concepts of the ion and ionic compounds, and helped bring about the rejection of Avogadro’s hypothesis. Thus, after Lavoisier, Berzelius must be considered the father of chemistry. However, things weren’t always so good for the man with an extraordinary mind. Berzelius was born in Sorgard, Sweden in 1779 as the son of two well-educated parents. Despite this background, his childhood was very difficult and unhappy. His father, who was a teacher, died when he was just four years old, prompting his mother to remarry. In just two years, she fell victim to pneumonia and died as well. Traveling from family to family, he eventually was sent away to school in Linkoping, where he supported himself by tutoring the other children. He had the extraordinary ability to learn languages and soon he became proficient in both German and French. Perhaps it was this command of languages which led him to try to simplify chemical formulas and symbols. He began his medical studies at the age of seventeen at the University of Uppsala, but was forced to withdraw when his scholarship was revoked. However, in this brief time period he learned a great deal of chemistry from A.G. Eckberg, the discoverer of titanium. His uncle found him an apprenticeship to a pharmacist at Medivi springs and it was here where he learned the quantitative techniques that would be the foundation for his later work. He resumed his medical studies and earned his PhD.
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