DUMAS, JEAN-BAPTISTE. - Born at Alais on 14 July 1800, died at Cannes on 11 Apr. 1884. Together with Liebig, he may be regarded as one of the founders of modern organic chemistry. In 1828 he published in Paris the Traité de chimie appliquée aux arts, which enjoyed great success; in 1832 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in the same year succeeded Gay-Lussac in the chair of chemistry at the Sorbonne.
He received Piria in his laboratory and maintained scientific relations with Malaguti; he was Pasteur’s teacher, friend, and protector; he assumed the role of Lavoisier’s successor, whose works he published. His Leçons sur la philosophie chimique enjoyed great success (Paris 1837; Italian trans., Livorno 1842). He was minister of agriculture under Luigi Napoleone and, until 1870, took part in the administrative and political life of his country.
A Catholic, he opposed the materialistic tendencies of his time and publicly defended Christianity and the Catholic Church, especially in his official addresses at the Academy of France: see, for example, those delivered upon his admission to the Academy, in commemoration of Faraday (18 May 1868), of Guizot (1 June 1876), and on the admission of Taine (Discours et éloges académiques, 2 vols., Paris 1885).