Barnabas Wood (May 17, 1819 in

Guilderland, New York Guilderland is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Albany County, New York, United States. In the 2020 census, the town had a population of 36,848. The town is named for the Gelderland province in the Netherlands. The town of Gu ...

– May 30, 1875 in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldes ...

) was an American

dentist A dentist, also known as a dental doctor, dental physician, dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry, the branch of medicine focused on the teeth, gums, and mouth. The dentist's supporting team aids in provi ...

and inventor best known for his discovery of the

fusible alloy A fusible alloy is a metal alloy capable of being easily fused, i.e. easily meltable, at relatively low temperatures. Fusible alloys are commonly, but not necessarily, eutectic alloys. Sometimes the term "fusible alloy" is used to describe alloy ...

known as

Wood's metal Wood's metal, also known as Lipowitz's alloy or by the commercial names Cerrobend, Bendalloy, Pewtalloy and MCP 158, is a fusible metal alloy (having a low melting point) that is useful for soldering and making custom metal parts. The alloy is n ...

.Finding aid for the Barnabas Wood Papers: MS.3459
, at the Library of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; retrieved July 28, 2014

Professional life

After briefly attending

Albany Medical College Albany Medical College (AMC) is a Private university, private medical school in Albany, New York. It was founded in 1839 by Alden March and James H. Armsby and is one of the oldest medical schools in the nation. The college is part of the Albany Me ...

in 1841, Wood began practicing dentistry in the company of his brother.Biographies: BARNABAS WOOD
in the ''Transactions of the Medical Society of the County of Albany'' (1888) In 1851, he moved to

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

, where he earned his medical degree from the

University of Nashville University of Nashville was a private university in Nashville, Tennessee. It was established in 1806 as Cumberland College. It existed as a distinct entity until 1909; operating at various times a medical school, a four-year military college, a ...

in 1852.

In 1860, Wood announced the discovery of an

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metal, metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only metallic alloys are described. Metallic alloys often have prop ...

bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element; it has symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth occurs nat ...

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

, and

cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12 element, group 12, zinc and mercury (element), mercury. Like z ...

, in proportions such that it had a very low melting point;

James Dwight Dana James Dwight Dana Royal Society of London, FRS FRSE (February 12, 1813 – April 14, 1895) was an American geologist, mineralogist, volcanologist, and zoologist. He made pioneering studies of mountain-building, volcano, volcanic activity, and the ...

subsequently proposed that it be named "Wood's Fusible Metal" in his honor.Ask the Historian: Onion's Fusible Alloy
, by William B. Jensen, in the ''

Journal of Chemical Education The ''Journal of Chemical Education'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal available in both print and electronic versions. It is published by the Division of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society The American Chemical S ...

'' (archived at the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati, informally Cincy) is a public university, public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1819 and had an enrollment of over 53,000 students in 2024, making it the ...

), volume 87, page 1050-1051; published 2010; retrieved July 28, 2014 Wood remained in Tennessee until the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

began in 1861, at which point his "sympathy with the

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

" led him to return to New York. In 1867, he earned a degree from the

Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery The Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, sometimes referred to informally as the Pennsylvania Dental College, was founded in 1856 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was the second-oldest operating school of dentistry in the United States by the ...

. Wood also edited various periodicals, including ''The American Magazine and Repository of Useful Literature'' (1841–42), ''Southern Journal of Medical and Physical Sciences'' (1853–?), and ''The Dental Circular and Examiner'' (1860–1865).

References

External links

Dr. B. Wood's plastic metallic filling : embraced in letters patent granted March 20, 1860, patent for the improvement allowed
(1864), at

archive.org The Internet Archive is an American non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including websites, software applic ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Barnabas 1819 births 1875 deaths 19th-century American dentists University of Nashville alumni