ilology at the university. He
himself entered the university in 1828, and in 1834 became _Privat-docent_.
In 1836 he became teacher of chemistry at the Polytechnic School of Cassel,
and in 1839 took up the appointment of professor of chemistry at Marburg,
where he remained till 1851. In 1852, after a brief period in Breslau, he
was appointed to the chair of chemistry at Heidelberg, where he spent the
rest of his life, in spite of an urgent invitation to migrate to Berlin as
successor to E. Mitscherlich. He retired from active work in 1889, and died
at Heidelberg on the 16th of August 1899. The first research by which
attention was drawn to Bunsen's abilities was concerned with the cacodyl
compounds (see ARSENIC), though he had already, in 1834, discovered the
virtues of freshly precipitated hydrated ferric oxide as an antidote to
arsenical poisoning. It was begun in 1837 at Cassel, and during the six
years he spent upon it he not only lost the sight of one eye through an
explosion, but nearly killed himself by arsenical poisoning. It represents
almost his only excursion into organic chemistry, and apart from its
accuracy and completeness it is of historical interest in the development
of that branch of the science as being the forerunner of the fruitful
investigations on the organo-metallic compounds subsequently carried out by
his English pupil, Edward Frankland. Simultaneously with his work on
cacodyl, he was studying the composition of the gases given off from blast
furnaces. He showed that in German furnaces nearly half the heat yielded by
the fuel was being allowed to escape with the waste gases, and when he came
to England, and in conjunction with Lyon Playfair investigated the
conditions obtaining in English furnaces, he found the waste to amount to
over 80%. These researches marked a stage in the application of scientific
principles to the manufacture of iron, and they led also to the elaboration
of Bunsen's famous methods of measuring gaseous volumes, &c., which form
the subject of the only book he ever published (_Gasometrische Methoden_,
1857). In 1841 he invented the carbon-zinc electric cell which is known by
his name, and which conducted him to several important achievements. He
first employed it to produce the electric arc, and showed that from 44
cells a light equal to 1171.3 candles could be obtained with the
consumption of one pound of zinc per hour. To measure this light he
designed in 1844 another instr