Jacob Volhard

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Jacob Volhard
Volhard at the LMU Munich in 1877

Jacob Volhard (born June 4, 1834 in Darmstadt , † January 14, 1910 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German chemist .

Obituary Jacob Volhard

Life

Volhard first studied philology and history at the Ludwigs-Universität in Gießen before switching to chemistry with his uncle Justus von Liebig . During his studies he got in contact with a Christian group of friends, from which the Christian student association Gießener Wingolf was formed on August 15, 1852 . So Volhard became one of the founders of the Giessen Wingolf and from 1854 the first Fuxmajor .

After Liebig's departure from Gießen to Munich in the winter semester of 1852/53, Volhard studied with his successor Heinrich Will . In 1855 he received his doctorate. phil. and moved to Robert Bunsen's laboratory in Heidelberg . At first, Volhard did not take chemistry very seriously; in Heidelberg he continued to devote himself to philology and history. He joined the Heidelberg Wingolf .

Justus von Liebig accepted the very talented Volhard as an assistant in his Munich institute in 1856, but here, too, Volhard was not constantly in the laboratory, he often kept to the sociable so-called " allotria " around the painter Franz von Lenbach and the sculptor Lorenz Gedon and was in contact with Moritz von Schwind and Paul Heyse .

Volhard began his real career as a researcher when he stayed with August Wilhelm von Hofmann in London in 1858 and with Adolph Kolbe in Marburg . In 1869 he was appointed associate professor in Munich, where he headed the inorganic department from 1872 to 1879. After a short time in Erlangen , he was appointed full professor at the University of Halle in 1881 , where he built a new exemplary institute building and was director of the Chemical Institute from 1882 to 1908 and rector of the University of Halle in 1897. In 1900 he became president of the German Chemical Society and in 1901 honorary member of the Association of German Chemists.

In 1909, Volhard dedicated the first biography to his teacher Justus von Liebig, which is now essential for Liebig research. For many years he was editor of the famous “ Annals of Chemistry ” (from 1871–1910) and Vice President of the Leopoldina , to which he belonged from 1883. Since 1879 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1900 he was elected to the board of the German Chemical Society for one year. Volhard was a great didactic specialist and his manuscript for the guidance of qualitative analysis was for decades a standard work of chemistry that was passed on throughout Germany and finally published in 1875 (called "Der kleine Volhard"). Volhard was particularly well known for his humor and his Darmstadt dialect, which he cultivated well into old age; Even as a student, his drawn caricatures were popular and feared. An aphorism still common today (in chemical circles) comes from Volhard: "The indigo blue runs like a red thread through the history of organic chemistry" .

Volhard died honored in 1910 and was buried in the Laurentiusfriedhof ; his bust still adorns the old chemical institute in Halle. Justus v. Liebig said of Volhard: "I've never had an assistant who was as finely educated as he was."

Volhard's students include Johannes Thiele , Rudolf Schenck , Daniel Vorländer (1867–1941) and Hermann Staudinger .

Volhard was married to Josephine nee Ofen (1842–1935). They had seven children together. The son Franz Volhard became an important internist and nephrologist, the Nobel Prize winner Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is a great-granddaughter. A hospital ward in the University Hospital Giessen still bears his name today.

Scientific discoveries

Important works

  • On the ureas of the diamines , London 1861.
  • The chemical theory , habilitation thesis Munich 1863, printed Braunschweig 1863 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  • The establishment of chemistry by Lavoisier , Leipzig 1870.
  • Volhard's instructions for qualitative analysis (ed.Clemens Zimmermann) Munich 1875.
  • Experiments in General Chemistry and Introduction to Chemical Analysis (together with C. Zimmermann), Baltimore 1887.
  • August Wilhelm von Hofmann - A Life Picture (together with Emil Fischer ) 1902.
  • Justus von Liebig - His life and work , 2nd volume, Leipzig 1909.

literature

  • Wolfgang Langenbeck : Jacob Volhard, an old master of chemistry . In: 450 Years of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle 1952.
  • Daniel Vorländer : Jacob Volhard in memory , Leopoldina 46 (1910).
  • Daniel Vorländer: Jacob Volhard, Reports of the German Chemical Society, Volume 45, 1912, pp. 1855–1902
  • Emil Fischer : Jacob Volhard as a historian . In: Der Deutsche Chemiker 2 (1936), p. 67 f.
  • R. Pummerer: Chemistry . In: Geist und Gestalt, Volume 2, Munich 1959, pp. 133-218.
  • Frank Kuschel: Mühlpforte No. 1 and physical chemistry at the University of Halle. The story of a university refuge. Diepholz / Berlin: GNT-Verlag 2017, pp. 25–32. ISBN 978-3-86225-108-7 . Website .

Web links

Commons : Jacob Volhard  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member entry of Jakob Volhart at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on March 11, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Volhard, Jacob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1834
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1910
Place of death Halle (Saale)