Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran

Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1838 to 1912) was a self-taught French chemist who discovered the chemical elements gallium, samarium and dysprosium. Born into a Huguenot family of Cognac wine merchants, he learned history and languages from his mother, studied the syllabus of the École Polytechnique on his own and assembled a modest chemical laboratory on the second floor of the family home, where he repeated experiments from books and made most of his discoveries. His early work from 1866 to 1869 concerned supersaturated solutions and how contact with crystals of an isomorphous salt makes the dissolved substance precipitate. He developed methods for separating and purifying the rare earth elements and was one of the pioneers of spectroscopy. Ankylosis of the joints and failing health limited his work after 1895.