His uncle, Christoph Wilhelm Mitscherlich (1760–1854), professor at the University of Göttingen, was in his day a celebrated scholar. Eilhard Mitscherlich was educated at Jever by the historian Friedrich Christoph Schlosser, and in 1811 went to the University of Heidelberg devoting himself to philology, with an emphasis on the Persian language. In 1813 he went to Paris to seek permission to join the embassy which Napoleon I of France was establishing in Persia.