Antoine Alexandre Brutus Bussy (29 May 1794, Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

 - 1 February 1882, Paris) was a French chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

 who primarily studied bussays.

Antoine Bussy entered the Ecole Polytechnique

École Polytechnique

The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...

 in 1813, and there followed the courses delivered by Pierre Robiquet, the great French chemist who was to make decisive breakthroughs in bio-chemistry (he isolated the first amino-acid ever identified, asparagin, in 1805-1806), in industrial dyes (he isolated and identified alizarin

Alizarin

Alizarin or 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone is an organic compound with formula that has been used throughout history as a prominent dye, originally derived from the roots of plants of the madder genus.Alizarin was used as a red dye for the English parliamentary "new model" army...

, the most famous and first modern industrial red dye) and the pick-up of modern medication (he isolated, identified and started mass production of codeine

Codeine

Codeine or 3-methylmorphine is an opiate used for its analgesic, antitussive, and antidiarrheal properties...

, 1832).
Robiquet tutored Antoine Bussy in his career as a chemist researcher and in his private career as pharmacist as well. In 1831 Antoine Bussy published the 'Mémoire sur le Radical métallique de la Magnésie' where he described a method of preparing magnesium

Magnesium

Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...

 by heating magnesium chloride

Magnesium chloride

Magnesium chloride is the name for the chemical compounds with the formulas MgCl2 and its various hydrates MgCl2x. These salts are typical ionic halides, being highly soluble in water. The hydrated magnesium chloride can be extracted from brine or sea water...

 and potassium

Potassium

Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K and atomic number 19. Elemental potassium is a soft silvery-white alkali metal that oxidizes rapidly in air and is very reactive with water, generating sufficient heat to ignite the hydrogen emitted in the reaction.Potassium and sodium are...

 in a glass tube. When the potassium chloride

Potassium chloride

The chemical compound potassium chloride is a metal halide salt composed of potassium and chlorine. In its pure state, it is odorless and has a white or colorless vitreous crystal appearance, with a crystal structure that cleaves easily in three directions. Potassium chloride crystals are...

 was washed out, small globules of magnesium remained.

Bussy and Friedrich Wöhler are each credited with independently isolating the element beryllium

Beryllium

Beryllium is the chemical element with the symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a divalent element which occurs naturally only in combination with other elements in minerals. Notable gemstones which contain beryllium include beryl and chrysoberyl...

 in August 1828 by reacting potassium

Potassium

Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K and atomic number 19. Elemental potassium is a soft silvery-white alkali metal that oxidizes rapidly in air and is very reactive with water, generating sufficient heat to ignite the hydrogen emitted in the reaction.Potassium and sodium are...

 and beryllium chloride

Beryllium chloride

Beryllium chloride is an inorganic compound with the formula BeCl2. It is a colourless, hygroscopic solid that dissolves well in many polar solvents...

.

Antoine Bussy became a President of the Académie de Medecine, and later on (1868) of the Académie de Pharmacie.