Jan Stanislav Štěrba Böhm was a prominent Czech chemist and pharmacist, a professor at Charles University and a leading figure in world chemistry for his study of the rare earth elements. He made his name as the author of a series of works on scandium and its compounds, pharmacy and analytical chemistry. In addition to his scientific career, he was also the chairman of the Pharmacopoeia Committee and the co-author of the first Czechoslovak pharmacopoeia.

Jan Stanislav Štěrba-Böhm was born in Sezemice near Pardubice as the son of Leopold Štěrba, a lieutenant in the infantry regiment. His mother died soon after he was born and he was cared for by a maidservant; his father later remarried and the family moved to Prague. There, he attended secondary school, trained as a pharmacist and, in his pharmacy practice, came to love chemistry and laboratory work. He decided to further his education by studying pharmacy after a forced break for military service, which he completed as a pharmacist in Dubrovnik. He then left to gain further education at the famed Parisian laboratory of Henri Moissan, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize, after which he studied with the leading German chemist Friedrich W. Ostwald. After his return, by then a doctor of chemistry, he joined the university institute for pharmaceutical chemistry, where he spent the rest of his career engaged in research. He soon became an associate professor, first in the field of the history of chemistry, and soon afterwards in inorganic chemistry; in 1920 he was awarded a full professorship. He became famous as a scientist for this works on the rare earth elements, particularly the study of scandium, its compounds and the possibilities of isolating it. He thus managed to have what was previously just a theoretical element added to the famous Mendeleev table and provided world science with the first scientifically proven information about the properties and compounds of scandium. In addition to this, in his laboratory he created a collection of highly pure rare earth preparations, which scientists came to study from home and abroad, and also conducted a number of other studies in the field of analytical chemistry and pharmacy. Towards the end of his life his experience and renown led to his appointment as the chairman of the Pharmacopoeia Committee, with the aim of compiling the first Czechoslovak pharmacopoeia. He accomplished this just a few short months before his death, thus making him a co-author of the pharmacopoeia used by physicians and pharmacists throughout the country.

Keywords: analytical chemistry; inorganic chemistry; pharmacy; organic chemistry; chemistry; pharmacy; pharmacopoeia; scandium; Charles University