Thomas Andrews

Thomas Andrews (1813-1885) performed important research in the area of thermochemistry, thermodynamics of phase equilibrium, and the nature and properties of ozone. His work on the heat of reaction between acids and bases is notable for its high technique and good numerical results, in spite of having been done at the time before the advent of the Arrhenius theory and when the law of conservation of energy were unknown. His most important contributions are the establishment of the critical state in vapor-liquid equilibrium, the continuity in the change of state, the correct definition of the concepts of vapor and gas, and the fact that ozone is an aIlotropic state of oxygen. LIFE AND CAREER The best information about the life, career, and scientific publications of Thomas Andrews is found in the recollection of Andrews’s papers prepared by Peter Guthrie Tait (1831-1901), his friend and collaborator.1 Thomas Andrews, the eldest son of Thomas John Andrews, a linen merchant in Belfast, and Elizabeth Stevenson, was born at Belfast, on the 19th December 1813. Andrews was first educated at the Belfast Academy and the Belfast Academical Institution, where he studied Mathematics under James Thomson (1822-1892) and classics under the Rev. Dr. Hincks. His most intimate companion was Thomas O’Hagan (1812-1885), afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland; and the close friendship lasted through life. After working for a short time in his father’s office during 1828, he left to study chemistry under Thomas Thomson (1773-1852), Regius Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. In a letter of introduction to Thomson, Dr. James McDonnell (1762-1845), founder of the Belfast Medical School, described Thomas Andrews as a modest, silent, and very capable boy, who wished to study chemistry profoundly, not merely as being connected with his professional business, but as a great branch of human knowledge. Andrews attended the Chemistry Class during the winter session 1828-1829, and one of his teachers, William Meikleham (1771-1846), professor of Natural Philosophy, certified that in the Public Class of Natural Philosophy “he distinguished himself for ability”.1 After this first college session, and while only fifteen years old, Andrews published his first scientific paper, On the Action of the Blowpipe on Flame.2 Although the action of the flame produced by the blast of the blowpipe had been tried upon almost every substance, yet its influence upon the flame itself had never been examined. Andrews directed the flame of a candle urged by a mouth blowpipe upon that of another candle of equal size, and found that on applying the blast, the flame of the second candle was inverted and exhibited nearly the same appearances as a flame acted on immediately by the blowpipe. This publication was shortly afterwards followed by a note On the Detection of Baryta or Strontia when in Union with Lime,3 characterized by the care and analytical skill so typical of all his experimental work.1 After graduation Andrews spent a short period in Jean-Baptiste André Dumas’s (1800-1884) laboratory in Paris in 1830. In addition to his chemical work, Andrews spent some time each day in the Hôpital de la Pitié (Today: Hôpital de la Salpêtrière). During his stay abroad McDonnell wrote to Thomas’s father that his son “should enter Dublin College, and return home from that, without pursuing the usual course of study there. He should at the same time be bound nominally to a surgeon...after which he should go to France and Italy, and remain there until he has satisfied his own mind; and, returning from thence, should attend as many terms in Dublin as would qualify him for taking the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and either or both the other degrees in Surgery and Physick; taking care, in these pursuits, never to relinquish the idea of becoming ultimately a merchant if it became his duty or interest to do so”. It is probable that this letter, coupled to a severe attack of fever, resulted in Thomas’ return to England and enrollment at Trinity College, Dublin, for Revista CENIC Ciencias Químicas, Vol. 39, No. 2, 2008. 99 a four-year course in Medicine. In Dublin he distinguished himself in classics as well as in science, and was awarded several prizes. He attended at the same time lectures in the School of Physics in the Meath Hospital, and in the Richmond Surgical Hospital. In 1834 Andrews attended hospital and dispensary practice in Belfast; he spent the ensuing winter and summer sessions in Edinburgh, where he studied under the physicians R. S. Allison, Thomas Graham (1805-1869), John Thomson, Robert Knox (1791-1862), and William Turner (1832-1916), Professor of anatomy.1 In 1835, Andrews obtained the diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the degree of M.D. of the University of Edinburgh. His thesis was entitled On the Circulation and the Properties of the Blood and among other items, reflected his work on the composition of the blood of cholera patients4 and the changes in the composition of blood that took place as a consequence of repeated bleedings.5 The information available on the changes that occurred in the blood of cholera patients was incomplete and contradictory, and Andrews took advantage of a cholera outbreak in Belfast to perform new experiments on the subject. Andrews believed that the discrepancies were actually due to the analytical methods employed. He analyzed blood samples taken at different stages of advancement of the illness and found that the only difference between the blood of cholera patients and that of healthy ones was that in the former there was a deficiency of water in the serum and a consequent excess of albumin, that the saline ingredients of the serum was the same as in healthy blood, that the red globules and fibrin were normal, and that the lack of fluidity of the blood, its dark color, and the bulk of the crassamentum (blood clots), were a result of the increased viscosity of the serum. In 1835 he was offered, and declined, the Chairs of Chemistry in the Richmond School of Medicine and in the Park Street School of Medicine, Dublin. In the same year, having settled in Belfast as a physician, he was the first Professor appointed to teach chemistry in the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. During the next ten years he delivered extended courses of lectures and gave instruction in practical chemistry to a large number of students. In 1842 Andrews married Jane Hardie Walker and three years later gave up both his medical practice and his teaching post to become the first vice-president of Queen’s College, Belfast. He also became professor of Chemistry at Belfast when teaching started in 1849, and did not retire until 1879. During the next few years Andrews published a number of original papers connected with voltaic circuits6-8 where he concluded that contact with an electronegative metal increased the ordinary action of an oxyacid on an electropositive metal if the acid is so dilute that the metal becomes oxidized from the decomposition of water, and retards the action if the acid is so concentrated that the metal is oxidized from the decomposition of the acid itself. In a paper on Galvanic Cells with Strong Sulfuric Acid8 he showed that the composition of the gas given off at the cathode varied in a remarkable manner with the temperature. His results on the subject are more valuable when consideration is taken that of the fact that at that time there was no knowledge on the constitution and dissociation of strong sulfuric acid.1 Early in 1845 Andrews was informed of the wish of several of the Fellows of King’s College, London that he should present himself as a candidate for the Chair of Chemistry there. He declined however to do so, but in the autumn of the same year he resigned his connection with the Belfast Institution and gave up his private practice, on his appointment as Vice-President of the Northern College, now Queen’s College, Belfast.1 It had been understood from the first that Andrews was to the Professor of Chemistry in Belfast, but he was required (as a matter of form, merely) to produce a few testimonials. These he obtained at once, in the highest terms, from such prominent scientists as Thomas Graham, Humphrey Lloyd (1800-1881), James Mac Cullagh (1809-1847), Justus von Liebig, and Dumas.1 Shortly after this Andrews initiated his detailed researches on ozone, which were communicated to the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Society with the titles On the Polar Decomposition of Water by Common and Atmospheric Electricity9 and On the Constitution and Properties of Ozone.10 In 1852 Andrews was elected a member of the committee appointed by the British Association “to propose such general views regarding a more systematic method of publishing scientific papers as may assist in rendering the records of facts and phenomena published in the United Kingdom more complete, more continuous, and more convenient than they are at present”.1 Andrews resigned the offices of Vice-President and Professor of Chemistry in Queen’s College, Belfast, on October 1879. The grave debility from which he had long been suffering increased so much that in October 1885 he was confined to bed and sank gradually, until passing away on November 26. His grave is in the Borough Cemetery, Belfast where a granite obelisk now marks the spot. His wife, three daughters and two sons survived him. The elder son became Major in the Devonshire Regiment and the younger a member of the Irish Bar.1