The Hening Brand reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Hening Brand

Hening Brand (c.1630-1692) was a German merchant who discovered Phosphorus in 1669. Being bankrupt, he tried to discover the Philisophers Stone to convert silver to gold. He experimented with distilling human urine, until he finally got a white glowing substance. However he kept his discovery secret, so it was until Robert Boyle rediscovered it 1680 when the new element became public.

This is the "Hening Brand" reference article from the English Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.