Chapter IV: Progress of Analytical Chemistry (3)

Dr. Wollaston's knowledge was more varied, and his taste less exclusive than any other philosopher of his time, except Mr. Cavendish: but optics and chemistry are the two sciences which lie under the greatest obligations to him. His first chemical paper on urinary calculi at once added a vast deal to what had been previously known. He first pointed out the constituents of the mulberry calculi, showing them to be composed of oxalate of lime and animal matter. He first distinguished the nature of the triple phosphates. It was he who first ascertained the nature of the cystic oxides, and of the chalk-stones, which appear occasionally in the joints of gouty patients. To him we owe the first demonstration of the identity of galvanism and common electricity; and the first explanation of the cause of the different phenomena exhibited by galvanic and common electricity. To him we are indebted for the discovery of palladium and rhodium, and the first account of the properties and characters of these two metals. He first showed that oxalic acid and potash unite in three different proportions, constituting oxalate, binoxalate, and quadroxalate of potash. Many other chemical facts, first ascertained by him, are to be found in the numerous papers of his scattered over the last forty volumes of the Philosophical Transactions: and perhaps not the least valuable of them is his description of the mode of reducing platinum from the raw state, and bringing it into the state of an ingot.

Dr. Wollaston died in the month of January, 1829, in consequence of a tumour formed in the brain, near, if I remember right, the thalami nervorum opticorum. There is reason to suspect that this tumour had been some time in forming. He had, without exception, the sharpest eye that I have ever seen: he could write with a diamond upon glass in a character so small, that nothing could be distinguished by the naked eye but a ragged line; yet when the letters were viewed through a microscope, they were beautifully regular and quite legible. He retained his senses to almost the last moment of his life: when he lay apparently senseless, and his friends were anxiously solicitous whether he still retained his understanding, he informed them, by writing, that his senses were still perfectly entire. Few individuals ever enjoyed a greater share of general respect and confidence, or had fewer enemies, than Dr. Wollaston. He was at first shy and distant, and remarkably circumspect, but he grew insensibly more and more agreeable as you got better acquainted with him, till at last you formed for him the most sincere friendship, and your acquaintance ended in the warmest and closest attachment.