Hennig Brand

Hennig Brand (flourished 1670, Hamburg [Germany]) was a German chemist who, through his discovery of phosphorus, became the first known discoverer of an element.

A military officer and self-styled physician, Brand has often received the undeserved title “last of the alchemists” because of his continual search for the philosopher’s stone, which reputedly could change base metals into gold. About 1669 he isolated from urine a white, waxy material and named it phosphorus (“light bearer”), because it glowed in the dark. Although Brand kept his process a secret, phosphorus was discovered independently in 1680 by an English chemist, Robert Boyle.