Andreas MarggrafBorn 3 Mar 1709; died 7 Aug 1782 at age 73.Andreas Sigismund Marggraf was a German chemist who was a member of the Royal Academy of Science and Literature of Berlin. In 1747, Marggraf demonstrated that various kinds of beet-root contained sugar and that the sugar could be extracted and crystallized. This discovery, however, was regarded for many years as being merely a laboratory determination and without practical value. However, it led to the development of the modern sugar industry, when Franz Karl Achard, a pupil of Marggraf, attacked the problem of beet-root cultivation and succeeded in extracting sugar from beets on a greater scale. |
