The earlier years of Albin Haller were spent in his native village of Felleringen, not far from Mulhouse, where he was born on March 7th, 1849. He was the eldest son of a family of eleven, and at the age of 14, after he had attended the primary school at Wesserling, he was apprenticed as a carpenter in his father's workshop. However, by a lucky chance, he happened, two years later, to make the acquaintance of a pharmacist, M. Achille Gault, who took him into his laboratory and gave him his first lessons in chemistry. For three years M. Gault, who was quick to recognize the marked ability of his pupil, devoted his leisure time to the training of Haller, and ultimately sent him to his brother, M. Leon Gault, of Colmar, to whom he became assistant. Early in the Franco-Prussian was Haller volunteered for service, joining at Belfort in 1870, but after the disastrous year of 1871 he elected to remain in France and rejoined M. Gault at Nancy, where he assisted in the establishment of a pharmacy, and continued to study for his pharmaceutical examinations under the direction of his master. In 1872 the University of Strasbourg was established at Nancy, and Haller became in rapid succession "aide-préparateur," "préparateur" and "chef de travaux" in the Ecole Supérieure de Pharmacie. In 1879 he obtained the "doctorat ès sciences," and in 1885 was appointed a professor in the Faculty of Science of the University. By this time his keen insight and great manipulative skill as a research worker, and his marked ability as an administrator and inspiring lecturer, had become generally recognized, so that in 1899 he was called to Paris as successor to Friedel and Wurtz at the Sorbonne. From this time onward, up to within a very short period of his death, at the age of 76, Haller continued to publish at frequent intervals a great number of original memoirs, amounting in all to 250, covering a wide range of chemical research. His great organizing ability enabled him to establish the Institut Chimique of the University of Nancy in 1890, and subsequently a similar organization devoted to the study of physical and electro-chemistry. He was chiefly responsible for the development of the teaching of applied chemistry in France, and in 1908 succeeded Berthelot as President of the Commission on Explosives.
Pure and Applied Chemistry Chemical Research Applied to World Needs (CHEMRAWN) issue
