Heinrich Wilhelm Heintz

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Heinrich Wilhelm Heintz , also Wilhelm Heinrich Heintz, (born November 4, 1817 in Berlin , † December 1, 1880 in Halle an der Saale ) was a German chemist and professor at the University of Halle . Heintz was particularly concerned with fats and organic nitrogen compounds.

Life

Heinrich Wilhelm Heintz was born on November 4, 1817 in Berlin as the son of a businessman . First he attended the Joachimsthal High School , then the Kölln High School in his hometown. Since 1834 he was trained as a pharmacist , he completed this training in 1836 with an examination as a pharmacist's assistant.

He then worked as a pharmacist, first in Berlin, later in Ludwigslust , Schwerin and Bromberg . In 1840 he also passed his school leaving examination after continuing his further education with private funds. In this and the following year he worked as a military pharmacist in the Berlin garrison hospital. The Humboldt University of Berlin referred Heintz 1841 for natural science - and philosophical studies . After he passed the state examination in 1842, he was a first-class pharmacist. He graduated in 1844 with the promotion for Doctor from philosophy. Then he also opened a private laboratory.

Two years after his doctorate, in 1846, the University of Berlin qualified him for chemistry (at the Charité ). From 1851 he worked as an extraordinary chemistry professor at the University of Halle . He was given the full professorship in 1855. At first he had to hold lectures in his own apartment, in 1862 he had a new building built for experimentation and teaching, and from then on he held lectures. This offered a total of 40 jobs, but since the agricultural institute was also founded and the number of students increased, the building quickly became too small. Heintz acted several times as dean of the philosophical faculty. On December 1, 1880, he died in Halle at the age of 63 from the consequences of a typhoid infection .

As an analyst, he quantitatively determined the proportion of urea in the urine and he determined the coloring matter of gallstones. He dealt with fat chemistry in the 1850s and studied the composition of butter, beef and mutton tallow, and stearin. He found a method for the systematic separation and isolation of higher fatty acids (fractional separation of the magnesium salts) and refuted the opinion at the time that what was then called margaric acid stands between palmitic acid and stearic acid (he found that it was not a pure substance, but a mixture of these was). He was the first to produce margarine acid made from cetyl cyanide (palmityl cyanide).

He developed methods for the analysis of nitrogen and sulfur in organic compounds, dealt with the chemistry of uranium, bismuth, cesium, rubidium and with metal phosphates, with reactions of chloroacetic acid (e.g. on alcohols and phenols , with which he made an important contribution to Class of substances performed by esters ) and the action of ammonia on acetone . He was one of the first chemists to use the constancy of the melting point as a purity criterion and one of the first to take over and further develop the chemical structure concept from Butlerow .

In 1853 he published a textbook on animal chemistry and he was with Giebel editor of the journal for the entire natural sciences. He was the only chemist to be a founding member of the German Physical Society .

The mineral Heintzit was named after him (by O. Luedecke 1889). Johannes Wislicenus is one of his students .

Works

  • Textbook of zoochemistry , Reimer 1853
  • De acido saccharico eiusque salibus (dissertation, 1844)

literature

  • Entry under Wilhelm Heinrich Heintz, in Winfried Pötsch, Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexicon of important chemists, Harri Deutsch 1989

Web links

Wikisource: Wilhelm Heinrich Heintz  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DPG members 1845-1945, pdf
  2. ↑ Mindat
  3. ↑ Formally completed his doctorate in Zurich, but he completed the dissertation under Heintz in Halle
personal data
SURNAME Heintz, Heinrich Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 1, 1880
Place of death Halle on the Saale