Friedrich Auerbach

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F. Auerbach in Berlin around 1922

Friedrich Auerbach (born August 23, 1870 in Breslau , † August 4, 1925 in Berlin ) was a German chemist .

Life

He was a son of Leopold Auerbach and, like his older brother, Felix Auerbach , attended the Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium in Breslau, which he left with the Abitur in 1888 . His father, who had his own laboratory at home and was in close contact with the physiologist Wilhelm Roux and the botanist Ferdinand Cohn , laid out the career path for his son Friedrich. Fritz, as he was also known, studied chemistry, physics and mathematics first in Leipzig with Johannes Wislicenus and Wilhelm Ostwald , then in his hometown of Breslau , where he finished his studies under Albert Ladenburg . In 1893 he received his doctorate summa cum laude with the thesis On a new collidine and a new pipecolin carboxylic acid . From his mother, a pianist, he inherited the love for music that has accompanied him throughout his life. From a young age he was an avid cello player. Auerbach married Selma Sachs in 1897; the marriage had a daughter: Charlotte Auerbach emigrated to England in 1933, where she received a professorship for biology in Edinburgh in 1959 . As a recognized geneticist , she is called the “mother of chemical mutagenesis ”. Friedrich Auerbach died of a heart condition at the age of 55.

Act

After a year as private secretary at Albert Ladenburg, Auerbach got a job in 1894 as operations manager at a blue potash factory (blue potash = ferrocyanic potassium) in Edenkoben (Palatinate). In 1898 Auerbach moved to a blue potash factory in Krefeld as operations manager . In 1903 he returned to Breslau and worked until 1904 in the physical-chemical laboratory of Richard Abegg , who was almost the same age and professor at the Technical University of Breslau . With his work Boric Acid and Arsenic Acid, a study on complex formation , he demonstrated his scientific abilities again after just one year.

Theodor Paul, director of the natural science department of the Imperial Health Office in Berlin (from 1918 Reich Health Office), a doctor of pharmacologist and doctor who had recognized the importance of the physical-chemical methods for his tasks, became aware of Auerbach and brought him to the Reich capital in 1904 . The state of hydrogen sulfide in mineral springs was one of his first work there. In 1907 he was offered a position at the University of Zurich , where he was to succeed Georg Lunge ; but Auerbach refused. Until his death in 1925, the results of his work appeared - also together with other scientists - in the corresponding years of work from the Imperial Health Office (from 1918 Reich Health Office). These include various studies on formaldehyde , the alkalinity of natural carbonated waters and juices , lead poisoning and the detection and determination of formic acid . One of the last works in which he was significantly involved is called On Theory and Practice of Electrometric Acid Titration .

In his spare time Auerbach worked on the Handbook of inorganic chemistry at which it Abegg 1908 By editor had won. After Abegg's early death in 1910, Auerbach continued the editorial work alone. The years of the First World War and the years after that made this task very difficult for him. Despite great efforts, he did not see the completion of the four-volume work. The Nobel Prize winner Fritz Haber said about Friedrich Auerbach at a meeting of the German Chemical Society : Auerbach same a man who had climbed a difficult bezwingbaren mountain we all have seen before us, no one would have had but to climb up the courage and perseverance.

Fonts

  • State of hydrogen sulfide in mineral springs . In: Journal of physical chemistry . Volume 49, 1904, p. 217
  • Richard Abegg and Friedrich Auerbach: Handbook of inorganic chemistry . 4 volumes, Leipzig 1908
  • Friedrich Auerbach, Emma Bodländer: For the determination of glucose by oxidation with iodine . Angew. Chem. Vol. 36, 1923, pp. 602-607. doi : 10.1002 / anie.19230367703
  • Theory and practice of electrometric acid titration . In: Journal of physical chemistry . Volume 110, 1924, p. 65

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lothar Jaenicke : Charlotte Auerbach. May 14, 1899 (Krefeld) –17. March 1994 (Edinburgh). "Mother of chemical mutagenesis" . In: BIOspectrum . Volume 11, 4/05, pp. 404-406

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Auerbach, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH 23 August 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH 4th August 1925
Place of death Berlin