Eugen Dieterich

Gustav Heinrich Wilhelm Eugen Dieterich (born October 6, 1840 in Waltershausen (Lower Franconia); † April 15, 1904 in Helfenberg near Dresden) was a chemist and pioneer in the German pharmaceutical industry as well as a royal Saxon Privy Councilor.

Live and act

The son of the Waltershausen parish priest Johann Carl Dieterich learned the profession of pharmacist and then studied chemistry with Justus von Liebig in Munich. Since Dieterich did not have the financial means to continue his studies, he took a managerial position at the Munich mineral factory , which was later followed by a job in a Bohemian paraffin factory , where he had the idea of ​​manufacturing pharmaceutical articles in a factory-made manner.

In 1869 he was commissioned to convert the former Helfenberg paper mill near Dresden into a factory for the production of chemical and pharmaceutical articles. In 1872 he and Eduard Schnorr von Carolsfeld bought the bankrupt chemical factory in Helfenberg , of which he became the sole owner in 1890 after his business partner left the company. In 1898 he handed over management to his sons Hans (1867–1916) and Karl Dieterich (1869–1920), who converted the company into a stock corporation that same year and went public for one million marks.

Eugen Dieterich had been the editor of the Helfenberger Annalen since 1866 , in which he put his analytical material, his preparation developments or their manufacturing processes up for discussion. In his publications, he impressed not only with his expertise as a chemist, but also with his clear representations and his power of speech as a specialist journalist.

Eugen Dieterich's grave

In addition, Dieterich earned a good reputation as a scientist at specialist congresses. He was one of the outstanding entrepreneurs in Saxony. The chemical factory in Helfenberg had only one steam engine around 1870 and employed a few unskilled workers. Thirty years later, two large laboratories and over 140 machines were in operation, and the company had electric lights, a telegraph and a telephone connection. Dieterich also employed 28 factory officials, including three chemists, and around 200 workers.

Laboratory operations underwent a change under Dieterich. The industrial pioneer designed and improved about a dozen machines and devices. He also developed over forty finished preparations , manufacturing processes, packaging and applications in the form of tinctures, extracts, powders or pills and initiated their commercial marketing. However, this led to fierce controversies with pharmacists who feared Dieterich's industrial competition.

Eugen Dieterich's products were awarded at industrial exhibitions in Dresden (1875), Philadelphia (1876), Brussels (1883) and Vienna (1888). He was an honorary citizen of the Waltershausen community and founder of the Pastor Dieterichische Charity Foundation. In 1892 he was honored with the Carola Medal and in 1893 with the Knight's Cross 1st Class of the Order of Albrecht . In the 1990s, a street in Dresden was named in his honor.

Eugen Dieterich's grave is located in the Johannisfriedhof in Dresden .

Works

• The secret agents of the present . In: The Gazebo . Issue 26, 1867, pp. 416 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
• New pharmaceutical manual . Springer, Berlin, 1887 , 1892 , 1895 , 1897 , 1909 , 1913 , 1919 , 1920 of the University and State Library of Düsseldorf
  • Addendum . by 1895.

He reported on his operating experience in the Helfenberger Annalen , which he founded in 1886 .

literature

• Georg Edmund Then:  Dieterich, Gustav Heinrich Wilhelm Eugen. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 670 ( digitized version ).
• Walter Fellmann: Saxony Lexicon . Koehler & Amelang Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich / Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-7338-0234-9 .
• The large-scale industry of the Kingdom of Saxony in words and pictures . Eckert & Pflug, 1892–1893.
• The chemical factory Helfenberg - family company and stock corporation. On the 160th birthday of Eugen Dieterich and the 80th anniversary of Karl Dieterich's death . In: Elbhangkurier , February 2001, p. 10.

Web links

• Eugen Dieterich . In: Stadtwiki Dresden

Individual evidence

1. ↑ waltershausen-grabfeld.de ( Memento of the original from August 21, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.