Jan Ingenhousz - Biography - Famous Biologists
Very soon after, more pieces of the puzzle were found by two chemists working in Geneva. Jean Senebier, a swiss pastor, found that "fixed air" (CO2) was taken up during photosynthesis, and Theodore de Saussure discovered that the other reactant necessary was water. The final contribution to the story came from a German surgeon, Julius Robert Mayer (right), who recognised that plants convert solar energy into chemical energy. He said:
Heinrich Hertz: The Discovery of Radio Waves - Julian …
So it fell to a Dutchman, (left), who was court physician to the Austrian empress, to make the next major contribution to the mechanism of photosynthesis. He had heard of Priestley's experiments, and a few years later spent a summer near London doing over 500 experiments, in which he discovered that light plays a major role in photosynthesis.
The Austrian Empress Maria Theresa heard of this remarkable feat and sent for Ingenhousz to come to Vienna and inoculate the entire Habsburg family.Ingenhousz didn't limit himself to the study of medicine, and it was his unraveling the secrets of photosynthesis that ultimately made his fame.
This led him to England, where in 1767 he immunised 700 people at risk of smallpox in a Hertfordshire village.He is credited to discovering this process, in which plants convert light energy into fuel.Google notes while scientist were already aware plants produced and absorbed gases, it was Ingenhousz who discovered and published his research on plants producing oxygen in the sunlight and carbon dioxide in the dark.