Topics of coins
200th Anniversary of the Birth of Ignacy Łukasiewicz
On 31 July 1853, an operating theatre of
a Lviv hospital was illuminated by the light
of a paraffin lamp that was invented by
pharmacist Ignacy Łukasiewicz and made by
tinsmith Adam Bratkowski. It marked the first
attempt to use the invention in a public space.
What was revolutionary was not the lamp itself,
but the use of paraffin to fuel it, which was
obtained from crude oil by fractional distillation.
The achievement was confirmed on 2 December
1853 by a patent granted by the Austrian Patent
Office. It was issued in the two names of Ignacy
Łukasiewicz and his associate Jan Zeh.
In addition to devising a method for obtaining
paraffin and inventing the paraffin lamp, while
still working at the “Pod Złotą Gwiazdą” [Under
the Golden Star] pharmacy in Lviv, Łukasiewicz
also developed a method for producing
the Oleum Petrae album pharmaceutical
preparation, which was refined crude oil
used for therapeutic purposes. However,
the medicine failed to face up to foreign
competition and Łukasiewicz and his associate
Zeh were thus forced to explore new uses of
crude oil. Its refinement and obtaining paraffin
triggered the development of the oil industry.
Łukasiewicz’s actions were not driven by profit
maximisation. He believed oil to be “the future
wealth of the country, (…) the well-being and
prosperity of its inhabitants, (...) a new source of income for the poor, and a new branch of
industry which shall bear plentiful fruit.”
As an ardent patriot, he took part in planning
the insurrection in 1846, for which he was
imprisoned and repressed. To the end of his life,
he remained faithful to his pro-independence
views in the spheres of both national patriotism
and social activity. His attitude was manifested
in his political and economic thinking, and in his
social views. Łukasiewicz supported the January
Insurrection. He also founded the National Oil
Society. He pioneered the then innovative social
insurance as well as fraternal, self-help and loan
funds, and medical care. He established schools and treated his work with the people as fostering
national consciousness among the peasantry.
Łukasiewicz’s inventions, the organisation of
oil extraction and processing, his work and
his personality earned him the recognition
of posterity and place him among the leading
Polish inventors and social activists of the
period of the partitions.
The reverse of the coin features the image of
Ignacy Łukasiewicz, the presumed prototype of
the paraffin lamp, and a view of the world’s oldest
oil well established by Łukasiewicz in Bóbrka.
Wojciech Kalwat