Gmelin's Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry

Gmelin's Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry , formerly “Handbook of Theoretical Chemistry”, is a handbook originally published by Leopold Gmelin (1788–1853) with the aim of collecting all relevant chemistry data. The first edition was published in 1817 by Franz Varrentrapp, Frankfurt (Main).

Soon the amount of data grew so quickly that the organic chemistry had to be separated. These data were collected in Friedrich Konrad Beilstein's Handbook of Organic Chemistry (from 1881).

The aim of the Gmelin was to collect all relevant data (chemical and physical) on inorganic substances, to review them critically and to publish them. From the 8th edition (1922ff), the Gmelin was structured according to a new system developed by the Gmelin Institute ( Gmelin system ). A 9th edition was not tackled, but similar to the "Beilstein" supplementary works were published that take into account the more recent literature. Since 1981 new volumes have only been published in English. Since 1990, the 'Gmelin' has therefore been called the “Gmelin Handbook of Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry”. In the last few years of the Gmelin Institute's existence, around 20 volumes of manuals with a total of around 6400 pages were published. The Gmelin can also be queried as an online database via the host STN International . The outstanding importance in the systematic recording of inorganic and organometallic literature worldwide made the Gmelin Institute a reference address in the systematic nomenclature of chemical compounds in inorganic chemistry. The head of the Gmelin Institute ( Ekkehard Fluck ) was for a long time chairman of the inorganic department of IUPAC ( International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry ).

In 1997 the publication of the Gmelin was stopped and the Gmelin Institute, which was responsible for the publication, was dissolved. By the time the publication was discontinued, 760 volumes of the manual with around 240,000 pages had been published, plus an overall register “Gmelin Formula Index” with 35 volumes.

Since January 2009, Gmelin has been searchable together with the databases of Beilstein's Handbook of Organic Chemistry and Patent Chemistry in a joint database Reaxys from Elsevier .

Web links

Digital copies at the web archive:

• Gmelin- Kraut 's Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry ... with the participation of outstanding experts 7th edition. C. Winter, Heidelberg 1906/7. Vol. I / 1 , Vol. II / 1 , Vol. III / 2

• Homepage of the Reaxys database

Individual evidence

1. ^ Brockhaus ABC Chemie , VEB FA Brockhaus Verlag Leipzig 1965, pp. 497-498.