Raoult Memorial Lecture

THE foreign honorary member whom the Chemical Society lost ayea r ago, although of an amiable, social character, seems to have been a man of retiring disposition. He rarely left France, and for the larger part of his life lived in that somewhat out of the way town, Grenoble. Raoult’s life thus offers little of attractiveness ; it is not romantic ; yet, after many years of work, the romance of his life was that almost sudden rise to fame, spreading from this nearly unknown corner, first over the frontier of his country, and then back to France, which made him one of the most prominent men of science of his age. Franqois-Marie Raoult, bornon the 10th of May, 1830, in Fournee, in the d6partement du Nord, in France, was of modest origin, his father having been an employ6 des Contributions. It was intended that he should enter the Bureaux de l’Enrkgistrement, but this career did not satisEy his aspirations, so he left the Enregistrement and obtained permission to go to Paris, there to pursue his studies. Without fortune or patronage, young Raoult was a student struggling for a livelihood, unable to finish his studies without himself providing the means. So he gave up studying at Paris, some years later, in 1853, after presenting to the Acadimie des Sciences a short communication, probably his first, containing observations on the transport of electrolytes by the action of the galvanic current as well as on electrical endosmosis (Compt. rend., 1853, 36, 826). Characteristic of the circumstances in which he pursued these investigations are his concluding words : “ Je laisse B d’autres plus fortunes que moi le soin de mener la science plus avant dans la voie nouvelle que je viens de l u i ouvrir.” It was in the same year, 1853, that Raoult accepted the appointment of Aspirant dp6titeur in the Rheims Lycde, becoming in 1855 Rigent de physique in the College of St. Did ; in 1856, Professeur adjoint, and subsequently Char$: o?,e cows de physique in Rheims again ; in 1860 in Bar-le-Duo ; his leisure having been employed in obtaining his degree as Licemiti 2s-sciences ph ysipues and Agrgggi de 2’ Enseignsment secondaire @ciaZ. In 1862, he left Bar-le-Duc for a corresponding position in Sens, and in this small country town, with no intellectual resources, left to his own initiative amid adverse material surroundings, forced VOL. LXXXI. 3 T D ow nl oa de d by P en ns yl va ni a St at e U ni ve rs ity o n 05 A ug us t 2 01 2