Heinrich Limpricht

Heinrich Limpricht

Heinrich Franz Peter Limpricht (born April 21, 1827 in Eutin , † May 13, 1909 in Greifswald ) was a German chemist .

Life

Limpricht was the son of the court architect Johann Friedrich Limpricht. He went to high school in Eutin, where he was already studying the chemistry textbook by Eilhard Mitscherlich . In 1844 he graduated from high school and began studying mechanical engineering at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig , where he also studied chemistry with Friedrich Julius Otto . Inspired by this, he decided to study chemistry afterwards and after graduating from the Collegium Carolinum in Ratzeburg, he made up his Abitur in 1848. Then he took part in the uprising against Denmark on the Schleswig-Holstein side. From June 1848 he studied chemistry in Göttingen with Friedrich Wöhler , the pharmacologist August Wiggers and the mineralogist Johann Friedrich Ludwig Hausmann . He was Wöhler's assistant from 1849 and received his doctorate there in 1850 (on the compounds formed from cyanuric acid and ether). In 1852 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on the determination of the atomic weight of iridium and platinum . From 1852 Limpricht was a private lecturer and from 1854 an associate professor in Göttingen before he became a full professor at the Institute for Organic Chemistry in Greifswald in 1860 . He had previously turned down a call to Ghent and an offer to become co-director of the Chemical Institute in Göttingen with double the salary. In Greifswald, where until then there was only a small laboratory in the women's clinic and where until then chemistry training was essentially limited to that of doctors and pharmacists, he set up the Chemical Institute. The new building based on plans by Limpricht, who had previously designed the new Chemical Institute in Göttingen under Wöhler, was opened in 1862. He took his assistant Hugo Schwanert with him from Göttingen , who became co-director of the Chemical Institute in 1875. During his time, not least thanks to Limpricht's efforts, the training of pharmacists in Greifswald took off. In 1871/72 he was rector of the university. He retired in 1900 and was succeeded by Karl von Auwers from Heidelberg.

He was particularly concerned with the chemistry of aldehydes and ketones . He is known for the first synthesis of furan (1870), which he called tetraphenol. In 1866 he synthesized anthracene , in 1855 leucine and in 1859 pinacol from acetone . He also analyzed natural substances, for example from lichen or animal galls. Later he dealt with aromatic sulfonic acids and their derivatives and the determination of nitro groups. He published over 300 scientific articles and two textbooks and supervised 105 doctoral students.

He was married to Charlotte Murray (1832-1907), the daughter of the doctor and inspector of the zoological museum in Göttingen August Murray , and had five daughters with her. His eldest daughter Marie (1856–1925) married the Protestant theologian Julius Wellhausen on June 25, 1875 .

In 1888 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1887 he became a secret councilor . In 1907 he received the Order of the Red Eagle, second class with oak leaves, and in 1900 the Order of the Crown, second class. In 1865 he received an honorary doctorate from the Medical Faculty in Greifswald.

His students include Robert Otto , Max Delbrück , Anton Geuther and the pharmaceutical chemist Heinrich August Beckurts (1855–1929).

Fonts

• Floor plan of organic chemistry, 1855
• Textbook of organic chemistry, 2 volumes, 1860, 1862

literature

• Christoph Friedrich: Limpricht, Heinrich , in: Dirk Alvermann, Nils Jörn: Historisches Lexikon für Pommern , Volume 1, Böhlau 2013
• Karl von Auwers : Obituary for Heinrich Limpricht. In: Reports of the German Chemical Society . 42 , 5001-5036, (1909). doi: 10.1002 / cber.190904204121 .
• Gerda Schneider: Heinrich Limpricht and his group of students (1827–1909): A contribution to the history of chemistry and pharmacy. Dissertation, University of Greifswald, 1970.

predecessor	Office	successor
Julius Münter	Rector of the University of Greifswald 1871	Otto Franklin