William Prout

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For the Liberian politician, see William A. Prout. For the American athlete, see William C. Prout.

William Prout
M.D.) (1811)[2]
Known forProut's hypothesis
AwardsCopley Medal (1827)
Scientific career
FieldsChemistry
Medicine

William Prout

natural theologian. He is remembered today mainly for what is called Prout's hypothesis
.

Biography

Prout was born in

Edinburgh University, where he graduated in 1811 with an MD.[3] His professional life was spent as a practising physician in London, but he also occupied himself with chemical research. He was an active worker in biological chemistry and carried out many analyses of the secretions of living organisms, which he believed were produced by the breakdown of bodily tissues. In 1823, he discovered that stomach juices contain hydrochloric acid, which can be separated from gastric juice by distillation. In 1827, he proposed the classification of substances in food into sugars and starches, oily bodies, and albumen, which would later become known as carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.[4]

Different species of urinary calculi noted by William Prout[5]

Prout is better remembered, however, for his researches into

protyle[6]), and that the atoms of the other elements are made of groupings of various numbers of hydrogen atoms. While Prout's hypothesis was not borne out by later more-accurate measurements of atomic weights, it was a sufficiently fundamental insight into the structure of the atom that in 1920, Ernest Rutherford chose the name of the newly discovered proton
to, among other reasons, give credit to Prout.

Prout contributed to the improvement of the

Royal Society of London
adopted his design as a national standard.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1819.[7] He delivered the Goulstonian Lecture to the Royal College of Physicians in 1831 on the application of chemistry to medicine.[3]

Prout wrote the eighth

Bridgewater Treatise, Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion, considered with reference to Natural Theology. It was in this work that he coined the term "convection" to describe a type of energy transfer.[8][9]

In 1814, Prout married Agnes Adam, daughter of Alexander Adam, of Edinburgh, Scotland, and together they had six children.[10] Prout died in London in 1850 and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.

The "

keV. It is named after William Prout. "Proutons" was an early candidate for the name of what are now called protons
.

Honours and awards

Bibliography

Prout's hypothesis, 1947
  • Anonymous (Prout, William) (1815). "On the Relation between the Specific Gravities of Bodies in their Gaseous State and the Weights of their Atoms". Annals of Philosophy. 6: 321–330.
  • Prout, William (1816). "Correction of a Mistake in the Essay on the Relation between the Specific Gravities of Bodies in their Gaseous State and the Weights of their Atoms". Annals of Philosophy. 7: 111–113.
  • Prout, William (1825). An Inquiry into the Nature and Treatment of Diabetes, Calculus, and Other Affections of the Urinary Organs (2 ed.). London: Baldwin, Craddock, and Joy. William Prout.
  • Prout, William (1834). Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion Considered with Reference to Natural Theology; Bridgewater Treatises, W. Pickering (reissued by
    ISBN 978-1-108-00066-6
    )
  • Prout, William (1849). On the Nature and Treatment of Stomach and Urinary Diseases (3 ed.). London: John Churchill. William Prout.
  • Prout, William (1947). Prout's hypothesis. Edinburgh: Livingstone.

See also

Notes

  1. PMID 12651838
    .
  2. ^ a b britannica.com
  3. ^
    PMC 2059932
    .
  4. ^ Price, Catherine (2018). "Probing the Mysteries of Human Digestion". Distillations. 4 (2): 27–35. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  5. ^ Prout, William (1825). An Inquiry into the Nature and Treatment of Diabetes, Calculus, and Other Affections of the Urinary Organs (2 ed.). London: Baldwin, Craddock, and Joy. William Prout.
  6. ISBN 9780385312110
    .
  7. ^ "Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660–2007". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 14 July 2010.
  8. S2CID 145419589
    .
  9. S2CID 33282916
    .
  10. doi:10.1021/ed040p652
    .

References

Further reading

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