[Halogens: discoveries of pharmacists]

The discovery of four halogens is due to pharmacists. Chlorine was isolated by Carl Wilhem Scheele, a Swedish who was first an assistant to a pharmacist, then a pharmacist himself. Bernard Courtois, a pharmacist under the First Empire, the son of a saltpetre worker isolated iodine in I811, after a modification of the ancestral production protocol of potassium nitrate, which is the major component of the gunpowder: he replaced wood ashes by varech ashes which are less expensive. Antoine Jerôme Balard was still an assistant in chemistry and physics when he discovered bromine in the residues of the salt marshes. He became soon after a pharmacist and started a famous career as then he became Professor in the College de France and General Inspector of Higher Education. The last halogen: fluorine was isolated by Henri Moissan who received the Nobel Prize of Chemistry. The discovery will be the subject of our next communication.