Wiegleb, the son of a lawyer, was schooled in
Langensalza. From 1748 to 1754, he served as an apprentice-apothecary in
Dresden. Subsequently, from 1754 to 1755, he worked as an assistant in an apothecary in
Quedlinburg. In 1759, he established his own apothecary in his hometown of Langensalza. He directed that apothecary until 1796. Furthermore, he was a senator and later treasurer of Langensalza. His work on general chemistry was translated into English and published as "A general system of chemistry : theoretical and practical. digested and arranged, with a particular view to its application to the arts. taken chiefly from the German of M. Wiegleb" (by C.R. Hopson, M.D. 1789). Wiegleb was a member of the Kurmainzische Academy of useful sciences and the
Leopoldina. In 1779, he founded a private institution for the training of apothecaries in Langensalza. That chemical-pharmaceutical institution was the first institution of its kind in Germany. It prepared the way for an academic education of apothecaries. Wiegleb was notably the teacher of
Sigismund Friedrich Hermbstädt and
Johann Friedrich August Göttling. They founded also chemical-pharmaceutical institutes after the model of Wiegleb. The name of Wiegleb is associated with the discovery of
oxalic acid in 1779. It turned out that it was identical with sugar acid, which was discovered by
Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1784. Wiegleb analyzed minerals, the formation of saltpetre on walls and the formation of
silicic acid from the reaction of
hydrofluoric acid and glass. He conducted studies of alkaline salts in plants, on the combustion of
chalk and argued against the possibility of
transmutation of elements. Particularly against the transformation of metals into gold using alchemical methods. At the end of his life, he became a follower of the
phlogiston theory. ==Honours==