Charles H. Wood

Charles Henry Wood FCS (1837 – 13 February 1917) was a British chemist. He was employed in the study of quinine extraction in British India, where he was a Professor of Chemistry at the Medical College, Calcutta.

Charles H. Wood, 1878

Prior to 1864, he was a "demonstrator of chemistry" in the laboratory of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. He was editor of The Chemist's Desk Companion with Charles Sharp in 1865.[1] In 1887, he helped develop a solvent extraction process for the extraction of quinine from yellow bark at the Government Cinchona nurseries in Bengal. The process involved the use of fusel alcohol to extract the alkaloids, which were then precipitated as sulphates using sulphuric acid.[2]

He was a government-employed quinologist at the nurseries in Bengal.[3] He was selected for the position by the Secretary of State for India in May 1873 and arrived at the Rungbee Division (Mungpoo), India in October that year to take up his duties.[4] Owing to delays in the arrival of his laboratory apparatus, he was unable to begin work before March 1874. "Some time was necessarily spent in the preliminary work of analysing the various barks produced in the plantation, with the view of determining the influence of elevation, manure, &c, on them, and also in conducting experiments with the object of settling on the most advantageous mode of manufacturing an efficient febrifuge. Actual manufacturing operations did not therefore begin until 1875."[5] Wood was succeeded at the Rungbee cinchona plantations in India by James Alexander Gammie.

Wood was elected a Fellow of the Chemical Society (FCS) in 1878. Around 1895, he married Rose Ada, 25 years his junior, and they had a son, Charles Edward Wood, born around 1898. He died in Parkstone, Dorset in 1917.[6][7]

References
  1. Wood, Charles (1865). The Chemist's desk companion. The year-book of pharmacy. London. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  2. Hooper, David (1889). "Cinchona cultivation in India". Pharmaceutical Record. IX: 296–299. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  3. "KITLV 80286 - Elliott and Fry, London - Mr. Charles H. Wood (Gov. Quinologist) at Calcutta - 1878-02". Commons. KITLV collection. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  4. Holland, JH (1932). "Ledger Bark and Red Bark". Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew). 1932 (1): 1–17. doi:10.2307/4107725. JSTOR 4107725.
  5. King, George (1880). A Manual of Cinchona Cultivation in India. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. p. 105. Retrieved August 10, 2015. Government Cinchona nursery.
  6. "Obituary". Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Institute of Chemistry. Proceedings; Royal Institute of Chemistry. Royal Institute of Chemistry: 39. 1916–1917.
  7. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966, 1973-1995


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