William Henry: His Achievements and His Law

Abstract

Henry is well-known name to all students of physical chemistry. Despite physical handicaps resulting from a childhood accident, he went on to a brilliant career in chemistry and medicine. The extensive and careful measurements that he made of the solubility of gases have given us the law that carries his name. Not many are familiar with his work on the steam sterilization of fabrics and other materials used as a medical tool to avoid spreading disease. He also did the basic work that proved that carbon is an element and not a compound.