held a speech, which was subsequently printed [41].
4 The speech is of much higher
literary quality than Wåhlin’s speech at Bergman’s funeral.
“How our blessed friend have been in the learned world, where he shined among the
brighter stars, we will doubtless soon see described by the learned societies, where he was
of the outermost value. It is above and outside our field of vision, to know and estimate his
merits in this respect, neither I nor You, my sorrowful audience, could follow his tracks in
the most hidden corners of Nature, where he resolved compounded bodies into their primary elements and from their actions searched his way to the causes. We have known him
as a member of the parish, as a citizen and burgher. [—] He was like all other men, and
consequently he carried the seeds for the same passions and desires for the worldly, but did
he not show, during his entire life, […] that he by religion and reason had found the
invaluable method to kill these passions and harness these desires. Can anyone say that our
blessed friend fell in love with anything but his science or his duties? He did not seek the
honour, but fled from it, even when it searched for him […]”.
Scheele was put to rest at the Köping cemetery, but with time the exact location
of his grave was forgotten. When the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society planned to
erect a monument on his grave for the 40th anniversary in 1826, the location of the
grave was already forgotten [42]. Some years later, however, when the church
caretaker Lars Gillberg was digging a grave at the cemetery, he found a
silver-plated copper plate with the inscription: “Carl Wilh: Scheele Apothecary in
Köping Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Berlin, Turin
etc. Born in Stralsund 9 Dec. 1742, married 19 May 1786, dead 21 May same year.
[…]”. The plate, which once was attached to Scheele’s coffin, is now a part of the
collections of the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society. In 1928 a memorial stone was
erected at the place where Gillberg’s son claimed that the plate had been found
(Fig. 28.3) [43].
News did not always spread fast in the eighteenth century, and Scheele’s death
was initially an unconfirmed rumour until a chocked Lorenz Crell received more
detailed news. “Carl Wilhelm Scheele is dead!! This says every experienced
chemist everything” [44]. “It was a great misfortune that he should die away!!”,
Gahn wrote to Wilke in 1788 [45]. “I have again admired him this winter, as I read
a newly published book by Kirwan on phlogiston and the constituents of acids”.
5
Scheele was survived by his mother, who died in 1788, and by two of his
brothers who died in 1817 and 1825, respectively. After Scheele’s death, his widow
once again faced the same situation as in 1775 and had to find a new apothecary for
the pharmacy. Mathias Georg Bölckou was recruited, and apparently the new
apothecary was more in her taste, as she married him 2 years later, in 1788. Thus,
three consecutive apothecaries in Köping were married to the same woman. Her son
from her first marriage, Herman Emanuel Pohl, died in 1789, aged 14, and she
passed away herself on November 9, 1793, aged 42.
4
The speech was reprinted by the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society in 1936 on the 150 anniversary
of Scheele’s death.
5
An Essay on Phlogiston and the Constituents of Acids, published in London 1787. As an
opponent of Scheele, Kirwan ignored Scheele’s work in this book, both his contribution to the
discovery of oxygen and the new acids he had discovered.
382
28 The End of the Story
4 The speech is of much higher
literary quality than Wåhlin’s speech at Bergman’s funeral.
“How our blessed friend have been in the learned world, where he shined among the
brighter stars, we will doubtless soon see described by the learned societies, where he was
of the outermost value. It is above and outside our field of vision, to know and estimate his
merits in this respect, neither I nor You, my sorrowful audience, could follow his tracks in
the most hidden corners of Nature, where he resolved compounded bodies into their primary elements and from their actions searched his way to the causes. We have known him
as a member of the parish, as a citizen and burgher. [—] He was like all other men, and
consequently he carried the seeds for the same passions and desires for the worldly, but did
he not show, during his entire life, […] that he by religion and reason had found the
invaluable method to kill these passions and harness these desires. Can anyone say that our
blessed friend fell in love with anything but his science or his duties? He did not seek the
honour, but fled from it, even when it searched for him […]”.
Scheele was put to rest at the Köping cemetery, but with time the exact location
of his grave was forgotten. When the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society planned to
erect a monument on his grave for the 40th anniversary in 1826, the location of the
grave was already forgotten [42]. Some years later, however, when the church
caretaker Lars Gillberg was digging a grave at the cemetery, he found a
silver-plated copper plate with the inscription: “Carl Wilh: Scheele Apothecary in
Köping Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Berlin, Turin
etc. Born in Stralsund 9 Dec. 1742, married 19 May 1786, dead 21 May same year.
[…]”. The plate, which once was attached to Scheele’s coffin, is now a part of the
collections of the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society. In 1928 a memorial stone was
erected at the place where Gillberg’s son claimed that the plate had been found
(Fig. 28.3) [43].
News did not always spread fast in the eighteenth century, and Scheele’s death
was initially an unconfirmed rumour until a chocked Lorenz Crell received more
detailed news. “Carl Wilhelm Scheele is dead!! This says every experienced
chemist everything” [44]. “It was a great misfortune that he should die away!!”,
Gahn wrote to Wilke in 1788 [45]. “I have again admired him this winter, as I read
a newly published book by Kirwan on phlogiston and the constituents of acids”.
5
Scheele was survived by his mother, who died in 1788, and by two of his
brothers who died in 1817 and 1825, respectively. After Scheele’s death, his widow
once again faced the same situation as in 1775 and had to find a new apothecary for
the pharmacy. Mathias Georg Bölckou was recruited, and apparently the new
apothecary was more in her taste, as she married him 2 years later, in 1788. Thus,
three consecutive apothecaries in Köping were married to the same woman. Her son
from her first marriage, Herman Emanuel Pohl, died in 1789, aged 14, and she
passed away herself on November 9, 1793, aged 42.
4
The speech was reprinted by the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society in 1936 on the 150 anniversary
of Scheele’s death.
5
An Essay on Phlogiston and the Constituents of Acids, published in London 1787. As an
opponent of Scheele, Kirwan ignored Scheele’s work in this book, both his contribution to the
discovery of oxygen and the new acids he had discovered.
382
28 The End of the Story