You know Bad Luck Brian.
Now let me tell you about Hard-Luck Scheele.
Carl Wilhelm Scheele was born in 1742 in Stralsund, in present day Germany.
His father was a well-known merchant, but Scheele chose to practice chemistry.
Two years later, in 1767, Scheele moved to Stockholm and began working as a pharmacist.
Winemakers knew about tartaric acid for centuries, but Scheele developed a technique to extract it chemically.
Scheele was also the first person to isolate lactic acid from sour milk, as well as glycerin.
He discovered hydrogen fluoride and hydrogen sulfide.
But his biggest discovery was oxygen.
This event also marks the beginning of an exceptionally unfortunate career.
By then, Joseph Priestley had already published his experimental data and conclusions concerning oxygen.
Before the gas was named oxygen, Scheele called it fire air because it seemed to support combustion.
Davy gave it the name chlorine.
As for barium, Scheele knew it was an element but he was not able to isolate it.
It was again Humphrey Davy who isolated the metal.
The same with molybdenum.
Scheele stated firmly that the mineral molybdena was unique and not an ore of lead.
He proposed, correctly, that it contained a distinct new element and suggested the name molybdenum.
However, it was Peter Jacob Hjelm who successfully isolated molybdenum and got the credit.
Scheeles run of poor luck continued with manganese, an element he identified but was not able to extract.
Statue of chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele in Humlegarden park in Stockholm, Sweden.
The pigment is a compound of arsenic.
Scheele, in many ways, was far ahead of his time.
Scheele died young at the age of 43 from mercury poisoning.
