Eilhard Mitscherlich
Eilhard Mitscherlich (born January 7, 1794 in Neuende , today a district of Wilhelmshaven ; † August 28, 1863 in Berlin ) was a German chemist and mineralogist . Among other things, he became known as the discoverer of acids and crystal structures.
origin
The Mitscherlich family had been farmers and gardeners in the area of Schandau , Chemnitz and Pirna in Saxon Switzerland since the end of the 16th century . In the middle of the 18th century, Johann Christoph Mitscherlich emigrated to Jever . His son, the Protestant pastor Karl Gustav Mitscherlich (1762–1826), married Maria Elisabeth Eden (1766–1812) in 1788, the daughter of the Jever art dealer and city treasurer Eilhard Eden. The couple had three children. Eilhard Mitscherlich was the middle one, his younger brother was the later pharmacologist Karl Gustav Mitscherlich .
Live and act
Eilhard Mitscherlich was on January 7, 1794 second parsonage on so-called Walk of the Dead in the time to rule Jever belonging parish born Neuende. He was baptized again on January 12, 1794 in the Protestant St. Jakobi Church . Mitscherlich attended the one-class parish school in his home village of Neuende from 1800 to 1803/1804 , his father's parish from 1790 to 1826. He then went to the Mariengymnasium Jever from 1804 to 1811 . There he was u. a. Student of Friedrich Christoph Schlosser . At the age of 17 he left the Frisian Jeverland to study history, philology and oriental studies at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg . There he joined the Corps Guestphalia Heidelberg in 1813 . After a two-year stay in Heidelberg , he moved to Paris in the hope of finding better study conditions at the Ecole des langues orientales . When Napoléon Bonaparte intended to send an embassy to Persia , Mitscherlich had the opportunity to take part in order to continue his language studies there at the source. With the collapse of the French Empire , this opportunity was lost, but without dissuading Mitscherlich from his desire to travel to the Orient.
Because he believed that as a doctor he had better prospects for a longer stay in Persia, he decided to study medicine, but still with the intention of continuing his language studies in the Orient. The beginning of the medical studies at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen in 1814 was a turning point in his life. Here he became a member of the Corps Bremensia . The chemical research in the course of his studies fascinated him so much that he gave up his language studies. Even Friedrich Strohmeyer advised Mitscherlich to study chemistry. Nevertheless, in recognition of his previous success, he earned his doctorate in 1818 at the University of Göttingen in Oriental languages ( Persian language ).
In 1818 he went to Berlin to see the botanist Heinrich Friedrich Link . In 1817 Jöns Jakob Berzelius was called to Berlin after the death of Martin Heinrich Klaproth . Berzelius declined the offer, but proposed Mitscherlich as the successor to this professorship in 1819. According to Minister Stein zum Altenstein's instructions , Mitscherlich had to acquire modern chemistry knowledge in Paris and Stockholm beforehand . After his return he was appointed professor of chemistry at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin in 1822 . At the same time he became a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences . In the further course of his activity he also became a professor of physics and chemistry at the military academy and supported official commissions with advice and action. In 1857 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
Mitscherlich died of a heart condition in Berlin-Schöneberg in August 1863 . He was buried in a representative mausoleum in the Old St. Matthew Cemetery. Mitscherlich's grave is designated as an honor grave of the State of Berlin . The mausoleum was, among other things with the original plastic that of Christian Daniel Rauch started and his student Elisabet Ney consummate portrait bust adorned Mitscherlichs. The bust, which was restored in 1990 on the occasion of its presentation at the exhibition “Ethos and Pathos” in the Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin , had been in the property of the cemetery administration for 23 years. After the metal restoration of the door (project by EFEU eV ) the bust could be placed in the mausoleum again. Original place would actually be on the back wall. There is a marble version of the bust in a lecture hall of the Humboldt University.
Scientific work
In 1818 he observed that potassium arsenate and potassium phosphate crystallized out in the same crystal form and that crystals of one salt continued to grow in the same structure in the solution of the other salt. He observed something similar with magnesium sulfate, zinc sulfate, iron sulfate and alums. Mitscherlich is therefore considered to be the discoverer of isomorphism (1819) and dimorphism . He was also interested in geology and the mineralogical problems of mining. He took crystal angle measurements and organized the minerals into groups. He dealt with volcanism and edited the great chemistry textbook .
Mitscherlich developed a detection reaction for phosphorus, examined the oxidation states of manganese, determined the gas and vapor densities of substances, examined the formation of water of crystallization in salts and considered the formation of mineral springs and veins.
After the discovery of selenic acid, he described the dissolution of elemental gold with concentrated selenic acid to form gold selenates for the first time in 1827 .
In 1833 Mitscherlich heated benzoic acid in a calcium hydroxide solution . He was able to distill over an oil that he called gasoline (later name: benzene ). Mitscherlich found a match with the bicarburet of hydrogen (benzene) already discovered by Michael Faraday in coal tar . He treated his "gasoline" with nitric acid and received the nitrobenzene . By dissolving the "gasoline" he obtained the benzenesulfonic acid and the diphenylsulfone . Mitscherlich was able to obtain a trichlorobenzene through the action of chlorine on benzene . The action of sulfuric anhydride on benzoic acid gave him benzosulphuric acid. At that time there was still a lack of clarity about the constitution of benzoic acid. The "gasoline" found by Mitscherlich was renamed benzene by Justus von Liebig in 1843 . In the foreign literature (French: benzène, English: benzene) the adapted name of Mitscherlich was received.
In 1834 Mitscherlich published a treatise on an apparatus for producing ether. Ethanol was converted into diethyl ether and water, the sulfuric acid only served as a contact . Even if oxidized water breaks down due to manganese superoxide, gold or silver, only one contact is required to break down the compound into water and oxygen gas. Furthermore, the sugar breaks down into alcohol, carbonic acid, and acetic acid; the urea in ammonia and carbonic acid. The addition of a ferment , which itself does not undergo any conversion, is necessary for such reactions at a certain temperature. Later Jöns Jakob Berzelius took over the ideas from Mitscherlich. He now called the ferments a catalytic force and the reaction a catalysis .
Mitscherlich also developed the idea that yeast consists of microorganisms. As proof, he carried out an experiment with yeast and a sugar solution.
In 1844 he used a polarization apparatus he developed to investigate the optical properties of tartaric acid and grape acid . They appeared to be identical in all properties, except that a solution of tartaric acid rotated the plane of polarized light to the right, while a solution of glucose was optically inactive. Louis Pasteur resolved the apparent contradiction by showing in 1848 that grape acid is a racemic mixture of the two optically active enantiomers of tartaric acid.
In the field of organic chemistry, he determined the chemical composition of many substances ( naphthalene , iodoform , uric acid , benzene). He also dealt with nitrobenzene, azobenzene and benzenesulfonic acid. He dealt with the formation of ethers using sulfuric acid as a catalyst, with fermentation processes in sugar solutions. He noted that during the process of fermentation of glucose produced (glucose), and this sugar from cane sugar is different. He developed a polarimeter with which he could examine the left-turning fructose and the inversion of the sugar due to the influence of acid. He published in the Annalen der Physik (Pogg. Ann.) Edited by Johann Christian Poggendorff .
Honors
In 1827 he became a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences in Paris, in 1852 he became a foreign member. In 1828 he was elected as a "Foreign Member" in the Royal Society , which in 1829 awarded him the Royal Medal . Since 1825 he was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . In 1842 he was accepted into the order Pour le Mérite . In 1857 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1860 he was elected to the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina .
On December 7th, 1894, one hundred years after his birth, a memorial was inaugurated in front of his long-term workplace at the suggestion of the then director of the University of Berlin, Prof. Cochius. The statue of Eilhard Mitscherlich , made in 1894 by the sculptor Ferdinand Hartzer , has stood in front of the central projection of the east wing of the Humboldt University in Berlin (cafeteria entrance) since 1919 . The statue was restored in 2012 and unveiled in a ceremony.
On May 28, 1896, a copy of the memorial was inaugurated, this time a monument given to the city of Jever by the Mitscherlich family. The statue made of copper succumbed to corrosion and was dismantled in 1963 because it was dilapidated and replaced by an approximately eight-ton boulder with simple lettering. The head of the statue ended up in an adventurous way at a Hungarian restorer in Budapest , but without an agreement on the restoration. Since 2005, the Polish artist Gerard Grzywaczyk in Katowice was busy creating a new statue for Jever from the still existing head and some other parts of the old statue, visually approximating the Berlin monument. This second statue was made with the funds of a support group with the participation of the Mitscherlich family, erected in Jever and inaugurated on September 6, 2006.
family
Eilhard Mitscherlich was the father of Gustav Alfred Mitscherlich (professor of surgery) and of Alexander Mitscherlich (professor of chemistry) and thus the great-grandfather of the psychoanalyst Alexander Mitscherlich and the grandfather of Eilhard Alfred Mitscherlich (soil scientist). His daughter Clara Mitscherlich married Gustav Heinrich Wiedemann (Professor of Physics). His daughter Agnes Mitscherlich married Karl David Wilhelm Busch (Professor of Medicine). His great-grandchildren were the forest scientist Gerhard Mitscherlich and the veterinarian Eilhard Mitscherlich .
Works
- Concerning the relationship between the chemical composition and the crystalline form of arsenic acid and phosphoric acid salts . Translated from Swedish (1821). Published by Paul Heinrich von Groth. Ostwald's classic No. 94, Leipzig 1898, archive
- About the relation of the crystal form to the chemical proportions. 3rd Abh .: About the artificial representation of the minerals from their constituent parts; 4th dep .:. which crystallize in two different forms , Academy of Sciences, Berlin 1822–1825.
- Chemistry textbook , 2 volumes, 4th edition, 1840–1848.
- Volcanic apparitions of the Eifel , 1865.
- About gasoline and its connections: read in the Academy of Sciences on February 6, 1834 . Engelmann, Leipzig 1898 ( digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf )
literature
- Karl Peters, Rudolf Winderlich : Eilhard Mitscherlich and his sex. CL Mettcker & Sons, Jever 1951.
- Günther Bugge: The book of the great chemists I , Verlag Chemie, Weinheim 1974, p. 450 ff., ISBN 3-527-25021-2 .
- Bernhard Schönbohm: Well-known and famous Jeverlanders. Pages 98–105. CL Mettcker & Sons, Jever 1981.
- Author collective (editor Dr. Karl Heinig): Biographies of important chemists - A collection of biographies , people and knowledge Volkseigener Verlag, Berlin 1983, pp. 113-118.
- Albert Ladenburg : Mitscherlich, Eilhardt . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, pp. 15-22.
- Hans Werner Schütt: Eilhard Mitscherlich. Builder on the foundation of chemistry. Oldenbourg, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-486-26273-4 .
- Peter Haupt: Mitscherlich, Eilhard. In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape, Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , p. 467f. ( online ).
- Hans-Werner Schütt: Mitscherlich, Eilhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , pp. 568-570 ( digitized version ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Eilhard Mitscherlich in the catalog of the German National Library
- Eilhard Mitscherlich's statue
- Known people from Jever , accessed October 9, 2017.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werner Menke: Monuments in Jever - monuments, memorials and fountains tell stories and stories , Verlag Hermann Lührs, Jever 2007, ISBN 978-3-9812030-1-1 , page 51.
- ↑ Kösener corps lists 1910, 112/95.
- ↑ Kösener Corps lists 1910, 63/46.
- ^ Lothar Dunsch : Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Teubner 1986, p. 92.
- ^ Albert Gossauer: Structure and reactivity of biomolecules , Verlag Helvetica Chimica Acta, Zurich, 2006, p. 161, ISBN 978-3-906390-29-1 .
- ↑ E. Mitscherlich, Pogg. Ann. 9 (1827), p. 623.
- ↑ Pogg. Ann. 29 (1833), p. 231
- ↑ Pogg. Ann. 31 (1834), p. 625.
- ↑ Pogg. Ann. 35 (1835), p. 370.
- ↑ Pogg. Ann. 31 (1834), p. 273
- ↑ Pogg. Ann. 55 (1842), p. 209.
- ^ Biot: Communication d'une note de M. Mitscherlich . In: Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 19, No. 16, 1844, pp. 719-725 .
- ↑ Gerald L. Geison: The Private Science of Louis Pasteur . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1995, p. 54.
- ^ List of members since 1666: Letter M. Académie des sciences, accessed on January 24, 2020 (French).
- ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed March 21, 2020 .
- ^ Mitscherlich in the order Pour le Mérite (orden-pourlemerite.de) .
- ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 170.
- ↑ Member entry of Eilhard Mitscherlich at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on December 29, 2016.
- ↑ Werner Menke: Monuments in Jever - Monuments, memorials and fountains tell stories and stories , Verlag Hermann Lührs, Jever 2007, ISBN 978-3-9812030-1-1 , page 53 ff.
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Mitscherlich, Eilhard |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German chemist and mineralogist |
DATE OF BIRTH | January 7, 1794 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | New, formerly independent parish, now part of Wilhelmshaven |
DATE OF DEATH | August 28, 1863 |
Place of death | Berlin |