Johann Wilhelm Ritter (from wikipedia)

Johann Wilhelm Ritter (16 December 1776 – 23 January 1810) was a German chemist, physicist and philosopher. He was born in Samitz (Zamienice) near Haynau (Chojnów) in Silesia (then part of Prussia, since 1945 in Poland), and died in Munich.

Life and work 

Johann Wilhelm Ritter's first involvement with science began when he was 14 years old. He became an apprentice to an apothecary in Liegnitz (Legnica), and acquired a deep interest in chemistry. He began medicine studies at the University of Jena in 1796. A self-taught scientist, he made many experimental researches on chemistry, electricity and other fields.

Ritter belonged to the German Romantic movement.^[1] He was personally acquainted with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alexander von Humboldt, Johann Gottfried Herder and Clemens Brentano. He was strongly influenced by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, who was the main philosopher of the Naturphilosophie movement. In 1801, Hans Christian Ørsted visited Jena and became his friend. Several of Ritter's researches were latter reported by Ørsted, who was also strongly influenced by the philosophical outlook of Naturphilosophie.^[2]

Ritter's first scientific researches concerned some galvanic phenomena. He interpreted the physiological effects observed by Luigi Galvani and other researchers as due to the electricity generated by chemical reactions. His interpretation is closer to the one accepted nowadays than those proposed by Galvani (“animal electricity”) and Alessandro Volta (electricity generated by metallic contact), but it was not accepted at the time.

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