Hennig Brand
German merchant
Hennig Brand (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛnɪç bʁant]; c. 1630 – c. 1692 or c. 1710) was a German alchemist who lived and worked in Hamburg. In 1669, Brand accidentally discovered the chemical element phosphorus while searching for the "philosopher's stone", a substance which was believed to transmute base metals into gold.
Biography
Brand was born in 1630. Some sources describe his origins as working class and indicate that he had been an apprentice glassmaker as a young man. However, correspondence by his second wife Margaretha states that he was of high social standing. He held a post as a junior army officer during the Thirty Years' War and his first wife's dowry was substantial, allowing him to pursue alchemy on leaving the army.
He was one of the many searchers for the philosopher's stone. In the process, he accidentally discovered phosphorus.
He is thought to have died in either c. 1692 or 1710.
Discovery of phosphorus
Like other alchemists of the time, Brand searched for the "philosopher's stone", a substance which supposedly transformed base metals (like lead) into gold.
The public source identifies “Hennig Brand” as german merchant. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hennig, Brand and German.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hennig Brand” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.