Theodore George Wormley was a physician, microchemist, and toxicologist born on April 1, 1826, in Wormleysburg, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Philadelphia Medical College in 1849 and started to practice in Columbus, Ohio, before being appointed as the professor of chemistry and natural sciences at Capitol University in 1852. Wormley concurrently held the role of professor of chemistry and toxicology at Starling Medical College starting in 1854, and he shifted his professional focus from medical practive to toxicology and chemistry.

Also while in Ohio, he was appointed as the state gas commissioner of Ohio in 1867, and in 1869 he became the state chemist of the Ohio Geological Survey. As state chemist, Wormley developed chemical methods to analyze coal, iron ores, clays, soils , slags, and limestone.

Wormley left Starling in 1877 to take the position of professor of chemistry and toxicology at the University of Pennsylvania. Wormley held this position until his death in 1897. He was appointed to the American Philosophical Society in 1878.

Wormley's best-known work, The Micro Chemistry of Poisons (1867), was the first American book dedicated to poisons and established his reputation as a leading microchemist and poisons expert. The book is dedicated to his wife, Anne, who did the fifteen pages of steel engravings. Their daughter contributed additional steel engravings for the second edition.

Physical description

Ca. 75 items.

Provenance

Presented by Mrs. Hiram B. Eliason and accessioned, 1965 (1965 714ms).

• Himes, Charles F.

• Gross, Samuel D. (Samuel David), 1805-1884
• Mitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir), 1829-1914
• Silliman, Benjamin, 1816-1885
• Wormley, Theodore G. (Theodore George), 1826-1897

• Medicine.
• Physicians
• Toxicology.