William ProutBorn 15 Jan 1785; died 9 Apr 1850 at age 65. English biochemist and physiologist who is noted for his discoveries concerning digestion, metabolic chemistry, and atomic weights. He is best known for formulating Prout's hypothesis (1815) which states that the atomic weights of all elements are exact multiples of the atomic weight of hydrogen. At that time the atomic weight of hydrogen was taken to be 1.0, the hypothesis implied that all atomic weights would be whole numbers. In 1818, he isolated urea and uric acid for the first time. Six years later, he found hydrochloric acid in the digestive juices of the stomach. He was the first scientist (1827) to classify the components of food into the three main divisions of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. In 1920, Ernest Rutherford named the proton after Prout. |
