Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Alfred Werner received world-wide professional recognition after being awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, according to the Nobel Prize committee, "in recognition of his work on the linkage of atoms in molecules by which he has thrown new light on earlier investigations and opened up new fields of research especially in inorganic chemistry." His 1893 research led to the understanding of molecular structures of inorganic substances, or chemical compounds that do not contain carbon. His research gave evidence that attractive forces are not connected to certain directions in the atom, but it is uniformly emanated from the middle of the atom. He shed a new light on this research. He received 17 nominations in five years to be a candidate for the Nobel Prize. He was the first inorganic chemist to receive the Nobel Prize, and the only one for the next sixty years. Born the youngest child in a Catholic household, his father was a blacksmith. His birthplace in France became part of the second German Empire in 1871, but his family were French in politics. Although he spoke French, his papers were published in German. He studied chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute in Zürich, but had to transfer to the University of Zurich to receive his doctorate in 1890. His thesis was on the spatial arrangements of the atoms in molecules containing nitrogen. It was a published paper that was an expansion of his thesis that earned him the Nobel Prize. From 1885 until 1886 he did his military service. After a postdoctoral study under Professor Pierre-Eugène-Marcellin Berthelot at the Collège de France in Paris, he returned in 1892 to the Swiss Federal Institute to teach. In 1893 he transferred to the University of Zurich, becoming a professor in 1895 at the age of 29. In 1894 he became a Swiss citizen. By 1913, he had serious health problems, which was diagnosed as early-onset dementia. As he aged, he suffered from rapidly progressive, degenerative arteriosclerosis of the brain, leading to mental confusing, personality changes, and abnormal behavior. He was grossly overweight and had drank alcohol heavily, which may have contributed to his illness. He had been a convincing and enthusiastic speaker with a gift for clear explanations of difficult problems, but with the decline in his health, he stopped lecturing in 1915. In early 1919, he resigned from his professorship, and since his family could not manage his care at home, he was admitted by that fall to a psychiatric hospital in Zurich, where he died at the young age of not yet 53. In 1894 he married a German lady and the couple had a son and a daughter. He published two textbooks in 1904: "New Ideas in Inorganic Chemistry" and "Textbook of Sterochemistry." Besides the Nobel Prize, he received from France the Leblanc Medal of its Societe Chimique and the distinction of Officier de l'Instruction Publique. He was a member of several scientific societies and received many honorary degrees from European universities.