Urea becomes the first organic compound to be artificially synthesised, by Friedrich Wöhler, establishing that organic compounds could be produced from inorganic starting materials and potentially disproving a cornerstone of vitalism, the belief that life is not subject to the laws of science in the way inanimate objects are.[2][3]
The van Houten family of the Netherlands invent a press to remove about 50% of the cocoa butter from chocolate.[4]
April 17 – Royal Free Hospital, established as the London General Institution for the Gratuitous Care of Malignant Diseases by surgeon William Marsden, opens.
December 20 – The U.S. State of Georgia legislature charters the Medical Academy of Georgia, which becomes the Medical College of Georgia, and authorizes it to award a Bachelor of Medicine degree, making it the 13th oldest U.S. medical school and the 6th public medical school to be established.
January 7 – Rev. Henry Duncan describes his discovery of the fossil footmarks of quadrupeds (Chelichnus duncani) in Permian red sandstone in south west Scotland, the first scientific report of a fossil track.[6]
^Bevan, John (1996). The Infernal Diver: the lives of John and Charles Deane, their invention of the diving helmet and its first application... London: Submex. pp. 28–33. ISBN0-9508242-1-6.
^Welch, Henry (1837). Loudon, John Claudius (ed.). "On the Construction of Oblique Arches". Architectural Magazine. IV. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman: 90. The stones were cut, or dressed, previously to the erection of the centre
^Schofield, Reginald B. (2000). Benjamin Outram, 1764–1805: An Engineering Biography. Cardiff: Merton Priory Press. pp. 149–154. ISBN1-898937-42-7.