Georg Ernst Stahl: Biography, Achievements & Lasting Legacy

Georg Ernst Stahl (22 October 1659 – 24 May 1734) was a German chemist, physician and philosopher. He was a supporter of vitalism, and until the late 18th century his works on phlogiston were accepted as an explanation for chemical processes.

Raised as a son to a Lutheran pastor, he was brought up in a very pious and religious household. From an early age he expressed profound interest in chemistry, by age 15 mastering a set of university lecture notes on chemistry and eventually a difficult treatise by Johann Kunckel. He had two wives, who both died from puerperal fever in 1696 and 1706. He also had a son Johnathan and a daughter who died in 1708. He continued to work and publish following the death of both of his wives and eventually his children, but was often very cold to students and fell into deep depression until his death in 1734 at the age of 74.