Joseph l proust biography

PROUST, JOSEPH LOUIS (1754–1826), French chemist, was born on the 26th of September 1754 at Angers, where his father was an apothecary.

How did joseph proust die

After beginning the study of chemistry in his father’s shop he came to Paris and gained the appointment of apothecary in chief to the Salpetrière, also lecturing on chemistry at the musée of the aeronaut J. F. Pilâtre de Rozier, whom he accompanied in a balloon ascent in 1784.

Next, at the instance of Charles IV., he went to Spain, where he taught chemistry first at the artillery school of Segovia, and then at Salamanca, finally becoming in 1789 director of the royal laboratory at Madrid. In 1808 he lost both his job and his money by the fall of his patron, and retired first to Craon in Mayenne and then to Angers, where he died on 5th of July 1826.

His name is best known in connexion with a long controversy with C. L. Berthollet. The latter chemist was led by his