Achille Müntz

Charles Achille Müntz (1846 to 1917) was a French agricultural chemist, born at Soultz-sous-Forêts in Alsace. He studied under Jean-Baptiste Boussingault in Paris, acted as his assistant for ten years and succeeded him as director of the chemical laboratories at the Institut National Agronomique, serving from 1887 to 1914, and from 1907 to 1914 he also directed the research station for plant chemistry at Meudon. He was a member of the Académie des sciences from 1896 and of the Académie d'Agriculture from 1915. He researched the feeding of cattle and horses, testing his theories on large herds and on Parisian cab horses, and in 1877, together with Jean-Jacques Schloesing, he proved that nitrification is a microbially mediated process. He was the brother of the art critic Eugène Müntz.