Baumhauer, Edouard Henri von

(b. Brussels, Belgium, 18 September 1820; d. Haarlem, Netherlands, 18 January 1885)

chemistry.

The son of a solicitor-general at the High Court of Justice, Brussels, Baumhauer attended the Latin School of Brussels, then studied classical literature and natural sciences at Utrecht, graduating with a degree in classical literature in 1843 and one in natural sciences in 1844. From 1845 to 1847 he was professor of physics and chemistry at the Royal Athenaeum in Maastricht, and from 1848 to 1865, professor of chemistry at the Athenaeum Illustre in Amsterdam. From 1865 until his death Baumhauer was perpetual secretary of the Dutch Society, Haarlem, and edited the Archives néerlandaises des sciences exactes et naturelles.

Baumhauer was primarily a teacher. During his stay in Amsterdam, however, he did a great deal of work in practical chemistry. In 1853 and the years following, he developed a method for the quantitative determination of oxygen in organic substances. His investigations on drinking water led in 1854 to the establishment of a waterworks in Amsterdam which drew its water from the coastal dunes. Baumhauer analyzed milk in 1857, and the following year he effected the passage of a municipal regulation calling for the inspection of food. In 1859 he began work on the accurate determination of the strength of alcohol, which was important for the levying of taxes.

Baumhauer published papers on a great variety of subjects, including diamonds, marine pileworms, and meteorology. After oil had been discovered in great quantities, he analyzed a number of samples from the Dutch East Indies and gave advice to those drilling for oil in that territory.

As a theoretical chemist Baumhauer was of minor significance. His analysis of meteoric stone, the subject of his thesis (1844), led him to theoretical speculations. He supposed, as Nördenskjöld did later, that meteorites were condensed nebulae, which, as small planets surrounded by noncondensed matter, described their own paths before they were attracted by the earth. He also held that when noncondensed matter, consisting of loose atoms, came within the earth’s atmosphere, it gave rise to shooting stars, fireballs, and other forms of light phenomena associated with thermochemical effects. He believed that the aurora borealis originated from the oxidation of elementary iron and nickel particles attracted into the atmosphere by the earth’s magnetic field. This theory was not accepted.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Almost all of Baumhauer’s work was published in Dutch journals, and some has been translated in German and French periodicals. A complete bibliography is in Gunning, pp. 49–57, and is supplemented in Van der Beek, p. xv. Individual works are Specimen inaugurale continens sententias veterum philosophorum Graecorum de visu, lumine et coloribus (Utrecht, 1843); Specimen meteorologico-chemicum de ortu lapidum meteoricorum, annexis duorum lapidum analysibus chemicis (Utrecht, 1844); “Ueber den muthmasslichen Ursprung der Meteorsteine,” in Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 66 (1845), 465–503; and Beknopt leerboek der onbewerktuigde scheikunde, 3rd ed. (Amsterdam, 1864).

II. Secondary Literature. Works on Baumhauer are J. W. Gunning, “Levensbericht van E. H. von Baumhauer,” in Jaarboek van de Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1887 (Amsterdam, 1887), pp. 1–57; and J. H. Van der Beek, E. H. von Baumhauer. Zijn betekenis voor de wetenschap en de Nederlandse economie (Leiden, 1963).

H. A. M. Snelders