Louis Henry (1834-1913)

Belgian chemist, professor at the Catholic University of Louvain. He had a sharp deductive reasoning in organic chemistry, which led him to synthesize hundreds of new compounds with a wide range of functionalities.

He proved that nitromethane was able to combine with aldehydes and ketones to form nitro alcohols conforming to the general system of the alcohols; this led him to develop in 1895 the nitroaldol reaction, now known as the Henry reaction.