Although recognized only belatedly, Mikhail Tswett (sometimes spelled Tsvet) was the first to lay out in detail the methods of the separation technique called chromatography. Tswett himself regarded chromatography only as a tool in his chemical and biological studies; his purpose was to separate and identify the many different pigments in leaves and other plant parts, and he considered it merely an improvement on existing techniques such acid-extraction, base-extraction, and fractional crystallization. Since he first described this process, many kinds of chromatography have been developed, and no laboratory is considered complete without a number of chromatographic instruments.

Mikhail Semyonovich Tswett was born May 14, 1872, in Asti, in the northwest part of Italy about seventy miles from the Swiss border. His parents were Semyon Nikolaevich and Maria de Dorozza Tswett. His father was a Russian civil servant and his mother, who was very young, died soon after his birth. His...