William Prout (1785-1850) was an English chemist, physicist, and physician known for his important research in the fields of physiology, meteorology, and chemistry. He studied the processes of digestion, respiration and blood formation, the urinary system, urine, and urinary calculi.
He also proposed the theory that the atomic weight of an element is an integer multiple of the atomic weight of hydrogen, known as Prout's hypothesis.
Prout improved the barometer's design, and the Royal Society of London adopted his new model as its national standard. He was elected a fellow of this institution in 1819, and in 1831, he delivered the Goulstonian Lecture at the Royal College of Physicians on the application of chemistry to medicine.
William Prout's work on the nature and treatment of diseases of the urinary organs enhanced his reputation, and he was considered one of Britain's most distinguished physiological chemists.
Prout was very skeptical of chemical remedies due to possible side effects, but he suggested iodine treatment for goiter. He also emphasized that a balanced and healthy diet should include carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and water. In 1824, he demonstrated that the acid in gastric juice was hydrochloric acid.
Prout wrote the eighth Bridgewater Treatise, Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion, considered with reference to Natural Theology.
He also published about forty articles and five books, primarily in various fields of physiology. Many of his books went through multiple editions and were long considered reference books.
Biography
First years
William Prout was born in Horton, Gloucestershire, on January 15, 1785. He was the eldest of three children born to John Prout and Hannah Limbrick, a humble farming family.
He learned to read at school in nearby Wickwar, and math at a charity school in Badminton, while helping his parents with their farm work. Thus, like many other humble 19th-century doctors, Prout's early education was almost negligible.
At 17, aware of his own educational deficiencies, he entered Sherston Academy, a private institution run by Rev. John Turner, where he learned Latin and Greek. In 1808, at the age of 23, he enrolled in the University of Edinburgh Medical School.
While studying there, he stayed with Dr. Alexander Adam, headmaster of Edinburgh High School. Their affinity was such that in 1814 Prout married his daughter, Agnes Adam, with whom he had six children.
Professional career
After graduation, Prout moved to London, where he completed his practical training at St. Thomas' and Guy's Hospitals. In December 1812, he obtained a license from the Royal College of Physicians and, in May of the following year, was elected a fellow of the Medical Society. He served as a member of the Council of the Society from 1817 to 1819 and twice as vice-president.
His professional life was spent in the medical field in London, but he also devoted himself to chemical research. He worked actively in biological chemistry and performed extensive analyses of the secretions of living organisms, which he believed were produced by the breakdown of body tissues.
In 1815, based on the tables of atomic weights existing at the time, he formulated the anonymous hypothesis that the atomic weight of each element is an integer multiple of hydrogen.
He suggested that the hydrogen atom is the only truly fundamental particle and that the atoms of other elements are formed by clusters of various numbers of hydrogen atoms.
Prout's entire life was marked by deafness, which had affected him since childhood. This condition led to professional and social isolation. His health declined in the spring of 1850, apparently due to lung problems. He died on April 9 of that year and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London.
Contributions
Urea analysis
In 1814, Prout announced a course of evening lectures on animal chemistry at his home. The topics were respiration and urine chemistry. Prout subjected urine to systematic examination.
Prout's aim was to establish a coherent connection between the chemical processes of metabolism and excretion, as manifested in the urine; as well as the changes observed in the clinical state of the patient.
In 1825, when the second edition of his book was published, now renamed Inquiry into the nature and treatment of diabetes, calculi, and other affections of the urinary organs , most of our current knowledge about the composition of urinary stones was established.
Prout said that in diabetes and some other urinary diseases, there is sometimes very little urea present. Changes in color and appearance have been observed, as well as some sediment, but no thorough examination under a microscope has been done.
Prout's book appeared in five editions and changed its name several times. Finally, it was published in 1848 as On the nature and treatment of stomach and kidney diseases; Being an investigation into the connection of diabetes, calculi, and other affections of the kidney and bladder, with indigestion.
Some contemporary critics criticized Prout for failing to examine and explain some of the theoretical issues involved in physiology. To avoid controversy, Prout resolved these issues with strong conviction.
By the 1830s the book had been almost universally adopted, but its omission of discoveries and advances made on the Continent demonstrated its inability to keep pace with new developments in chemistry and physiology; it was soon replaced by other texts.
Prout's Hypothesis
Prout made the two hypotheses of integral atomic weights and the unity of matter. That is, the atomic weights of all chemical elements are integer multiples of the atomic weight of hydrogen.
He suggested that hydrogen could be the primary material from which all other elements were formed. This was expressed in two papers in the Annals of Philosophy (1815, 1816). They were titled The relation between the specific gravities of bodies in their gaseous state and the weights of their atoms.
The work involved calculating the specific gravities (relative densities) of the elements from published data by other chemists. He derived an excellent value for hydrogen, which, due to its light weight, had been very difficult to determine precisely through experiment.
This was perhaps his best-known contribution to chemistry. It sparked interest and improvement in the determination of exact atomic weights and, therefore, in atomic theory, as well as in the search for a system of classifying the elements.
Although he initially published his hypothesis anonymously, he identified himself as the author when he discovered that his ideas had been accepted by the eminent chemist Thomas Thomson, founder of the Annals of Philosophy.
Although Prout's hypothesis was not confirmed by subsequent, more precise measurements of atomic weights, it was a fundamental insight into the structure of the atom. Therefore, in 1920, Ernest Rutherford chose the name of the newly discovered proton to, among other reasons, credit Prout.
Gastric acids
Gastric digestion had long been the subject of speculation and experimentation. In 1823, William Prout discovered that stomach juices contain hydrochloric acid, which can be separated from gastric juice by distillation.
His report, read before the Royal Society of London on December 11, 1823, was published early the following year. Just a month after Prout's publication, hydrochloric acid was independently identified in gastric juice by a different method performed by Friedrich Tiedemann and Leopold Gmelin.
They gave Prout credit for the discovery of hydrochloric acid, but also claimed to have found butyric and acetic acid in gastric juice.
Jobs
Prout published approximately forty articles and five books, primarily in the fields of physiology. Many of his books went through several editions and were long considered reference books.
His first work beyond his doctoral thesis was published in 1812 and dealt with the sensations of taste and smell. In 1813, he published a lengthy memoir on the amount of CO2 emitted by the lungs during respiration, at different times and under different conditions.
He developed his medical career as a specialist in stomach and urological diseases, which made him a prestigious physician in these areas. In 1821, he summarized his findings in his book An Inquiry into the Nature and Treatment of Diabetes, Calculi, and Other Affections of the Urinary Organs . This work was later republished under the title On the Nature and Treatment of Stomach and Urinary Diseases.
On the other hand, Prout wrote the eighth Bridgewater Treatise, Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion with Reference to Natural Theology, which appeared in February 1834.
The first 1.000 copies sold quickly and led to the publication of a second edition on June 7, 1834. A third, slightly modified, edition appeared in 1845. And the fourth edition appeared posthumously in 1855.
References
- Biography of William Prout (1785–1850). (2019). Retrieved from thebiography.us
- Copeman, W. (2019). William Prout, MD, FRS, Physician and Chemist (1785–1850) | Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. Retrieved from royalsocietypublishing.org
- Rosenfeld, L. (2019). William Prout: Early XNUMXth-Century Physician-Chemist. Retrieved from clinchem.aaccjnls.org
- William Prout, British chemist (2019). Retrieved from britannica.com
- Wisniak, J. (2019). William Prout Taken from magazines.unam.mx