Bernard Courtois
Bernard Courtois was born in Dijon in 1777, the son of a saltpeter maker in close contact with the chemist L.B. Guyton de Morveau. He trained as a pharmacist and worked in Paris in the laboratories of Fourcroy, Thénard and Séguin, before turning to his father’s saltpeter business. He died in poverty in 1838, having never patented any of his discoveries.
In 1811 he accidentally discovered iodine while treating seaweed ash with sulfuric acid during saltpeter production. Years earlier, in Armand Séguin’s laboratory, he had also isolated a crystalline compound from opium, later identified as morphine. Lacking the means to pursue his observations further, he left their study to other chemists.
Biography
1777 – Bernard Courtois was born in Dijon.
Bernard Courtois was born in Dijon on 8 February 1777, the fourth of seven children of Jean-Baptiste Courtois and Marie Bled.
1779 – The Courtois family moves into the premises of the Academy of Dijon.
The Courtois family moved into the premises of the Académie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon, where Jean-Baptiste Courtois worked as an assistant and later, from January 1776, as full-time démonstrateur for L.B. Guyton de Morveau’s chemistry course.
Bibliography
1921 – Bernard Courtois (1777–1838) et la découverte de l’iode (1811)
Vigot Frères, Paris.
Léon-Gabriel Toraude
A biographical monograph tracing Courtois’ life and his 1811 discovery of iodine, drawing on family and Dijon Academy archives to reconstruct the circumstances of the discovery.
Bernard Courtois (1777–1838) et la découverte de l’iode (1811) on Google Books (opens in a new tab)
2002 – Bernard Courtois. The Discoverer of Iodine
Educación Química, vol. 13 (issue 3), pp. 206–213.
Jaime Wisniak
A chemistry-history article recounting how Courtois isolated iodine from seaweed ash in 1811, situating the discovery within the broader development of halogen chemistry.
Bernard Courtois. The Discoverer of Iodine, Educación Química (opens in a new tab)
2005 – Bernard Courtois (1777–1838), Famed for Discovering Iodine (1811), and His Life in Paris from 1798
Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, vol. 30 (issue 2), pp. 103–111.
Patricia A. Swain
An account of Courtois’ years in Paris from 1798 onward, covering his training under Fourcroy, Thénard and Séguin alongside the events leading to the iodine discovery.
2009 – “Courtois and Iodine”
The Hexagon, vol. 100 (issue 1), pp. 72-75.
James L. Marshall, Virginia R. Marshall
Part of the “Rediscovery of the Elements” series, this article revisits the sites and circumstances of Courtois’ discovery of iodine, illustrated with present-day photographs of the surviving locations.
Rediscovery of the Elements: Courtois and Iodine, UNT Digital Library (opens in a new tab)