German-born Friedrich Wohler, received his medical degree in 1823 from the University of Heidelberg. Early in his career he realized his interests were more directed to chemistry than medicine and he received permission to work in Stockholm with Jons Jakob Berzelius, perhaps the greatest figure in chemistry at that time. Wohler devoted his energies to research in organic chemistry. His synthesis of urea, the first synthesis of an organic compound from inorganic material, opened a new era in organic chemistry and contributed greatly to the theory of isomerism. His work on benzoic acid was important to the chemistry of metabolism. Wohler was born on this date in 1800 and died in 1882.

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