Stromeyer pioneered the hands-on, laboratory-based approach to chemistry teaching developed in Germany, as well as being a significant analytical chemist in his own right, discovering the element cadmium. He studied with Gmelin’s father in Göttingen before becoming a postgraduate pupil of Vauquelin in Paris. Bunsen and Mitscherlich were the most important of his students. Gmelin and Turner studied with him too; Turner felt himself indebted to Stromeyer, was proud in later years to call himself a friend, and dedicated a book to him.