Bergman, Sir Torbern / Cullen, Edmund (translator). Physical and Chemical Essays. Translated from the Original Latin of Sir Torbern Bergman, Knight of the Order of Wasa, Professor of Chemistry at Upsal, &c.&c.&c. by Edmund Cullen, M.D. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians at Dublin. To which are added Notes and Illustrations, by the Translator. Two Volumes. London, Printed for J. Murray and William Creech, Edinburgh. 1788. 21 x 12 cm. Vol.1: xliv, 467 pages and four folding Plates/Tables / Vol.2: xvii, 529 pages and two folding Plates. Contemporary half calf over marbled paper boards. Blue speckled edges. Black morocco spine labels. Volume numbers and gilt decorations on spine.

Torbern Bergman (1735 – 1784) was a Swedish chemist and mineralogist noted for his 1775 Dissertation on Elective Attractions, containing the largest chemical affinity tables ever published. The translation into English of his book Physical and Chemical Essays was read widely and regarded as the first systematic method of chemical analysis.
Torbern was born on 20 March 1735. He enrolled at the University of Uppsala at age 17. His father wished him to read either law or divinity, while he himself was anxious to study mathematics and natural science; in the effort to please both himself and his father, he overworked himself and harmed his health. During a period of enforced abstinence from study, he amused himself with field botany and entomology. He returned to the university in 1758 and received his PhD in that year.
Bergman lectured at the University of Uppsala on physics and mathematics, publishing papers on the rainbow, the aurora, the pyroelectric phenomena of tourmaline. Upon the resignation of the celebrated Johan Wallerius, Bergman was a candidate for the professorship of chemistry and mineralogy. His competitors charged him with ignorance of the subject because he had never written on it. To refute them, he shut himself up for some time in a laboratory and prepared a treatise on the manufacture of alum, which became a standard work. Thanks to the influence of Gustav III, then crown prince and chancellor of the university, he was appointed a professor of chemistry, and remained at this position for the rest of his life.
Bergman greatly contributed to the advancement of quantitative analysis, and he developed a mineral classification scheme based on chemical characteristics and appearance. He is noted for his research on the chemistry of metals, especially bismuth and nickel.
In 1764, Bergman was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In April 1765 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1773 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. In March 1782, he was elected Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences.
In 1771, six years after he first discovered carbonated water and four years after Joseph Priestley first created artificially carbonated water, Bergman perfected a process to make carbonated water from chalk by the action of sulphuric acid.
In Bergman’s honour, the uranium mineral torbernite and the lunar crater Bergman both bear his name.

• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 103807AB

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