ACCUM (Fredrick)
A System of Theoretical and Practical Chemistry.
Accum’s first book, published privately from his pharmacy on Old Compton street, the beginning of an extraordinary career in England, which ended in disaster, Accum fleeing back to his native Germany after being caught mutilating books from the Royal Institution library. Before his fall from grace Accum, under the influence of his hero Lavoisier, had risen to the rank of chief chemist to the Gas Light and Coke Company, his specialities including the improvement of lighting by gas, mineralogy, and food science. He began his career as an apprentice to the Brande family, pharmacists to George III, was for a while an assistant to Sir Humphry Davy, became an accomplished lecturer, was caricatured by Rowlandson, and ended it as a Professor at the Royal Academy of Construction in Berlin. The lingering whiff of scandal attached to Accum has somewhat obscured his important work on the beginnings of gas lighting and the adulteration of food, some of his later books being published under the pseudonym ‘Mucca’. Among the list of subscribers is the name of Sir Joseph Banks.
