Michele Peyrone

Michele Peyrone (born May 26, 1813 in Mondovì Breo, † July 1883 in Carrù ) was an Italian chemist. In 1844 he was the first to synthesize cisplatin (then called Peyrones Chloride ), which was used much later as a chemotherapeutic agent against cancer ( Barnett Rosenberg 1965). As a student of Justus von Liebig, he was a pioneer of his theories on agricultural chemistry in Italy.

biography

Peyrone came from a wealthy family (which is why he was later financially independent), but he lost his parents at an early age. Since he was sickly, he attended school relatively late. He was at the grammar school in Brà and then studied at the University of Turin first law and then switched to medicine. In 1835 he received his doctorate in medicine. He then fought a cholera epidemic in Mondovi and then visited the leading hospitals and universities in Italy, where his interest in chemistry awakened, which he then turned to. From 1839 he studied with the then famous chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas in Paris ( École Polytechnique ), who was the first French chemist to set up a teaching laboratory in 1832. Dumas' interest in biochemistry (he published an essay in which he compared the metabolism of plants and animals) also rubbed off on Peyrone, who turned to agricultural chemistry. 1842 Peyrone went to Giessen and became a student of Justus von Liebig (actually a Competitor of Dumas, who was involved in a dispute with him), with whom he remained friends for the rest of his life. In Liebig's laboratory he worked on platinum compounds, including Magnus salt (chloroplatinum ammonium, Magnus' green salt), which Heinrich Gustav Magnus had synthesized in 1828 in the laboratory of Jöns Jakob Berzelius . When he tried to synthesize this, he received, in addition to the green salt, another yellow salt of the same composition, which he published in Liebig's Annalen der Chemie in 1844. That was cisplatin. He was only able to come to the realization that it was an isomer in a publication in 1845. The cis structure was only recognized later, when cisplatin played a role in Alfred Werner's pioneering studies on complex chemistry .

For health reasons, he left Liebig's laboratory in Giessen in 1844 and visited institutes and hospitals in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Great Britain, and then returned to Turin in 1845, where he became an assistant in the laboratory of GL Cantù. In Italy he was an advocate of Liebig's revolutionary ideas on agricultural chemistry, which were still controversial at the time. From November 1847 he taught at the evening school for applied arts (Genova Scuola Serale di Arti Applicate) in Genoa and in 1849 he became a professor at the University of Genoa. In 1854 he moved as a professor at the Royal Polytechnic (Reale Istituto Tecnico) in Turin and he became professor of agricultural chemistry at the University of Turin. He also taught organic and physiological chemistry and eventually became Professor of General Chemistry and Vice Director of the Chemical Laboratory of the University of Turin. In 1866 he withdrew from the university because of disputes about the doctoral procedure and taught again at the polytechnic, which, however, did not have the rights of a university. In 1879 he retired for health reasons and last lived in Carrù near Mondovi.

He published, among other things, on the causes of why wine becomes acidic and the requirements for plant growth and the influence of the soil. He wrote an Italian textbook on agricultural chemistry based on Liebig's lectures and his textbook from 1840, on which he also held public, freely accessible courses in Turin in the 1860s.

He spoke several languages ​​(in addition to his mother tongue Latin, French, German, English). He was a member of the Royal Academy of Agriculture in Turin, the Medical-Surgical Academy in Genoa, the Agricultural Academy in Perugia, the Pharmaceutical Society of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Cavaliere dell'Ordine Mauriziano and Commendatore della Corona d'Italia. In the Crimean War he was in charge of supplying the Piedmontese army. After the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy, Cavour appointed him to a committee on agriculture and the use of fertilizers.

In 1855 he married Ester Daziano, with whom he had two daughters. She died in 1858 and one of his daughters also died at the age of 13.

Fonts

• Lezzioni sulla chimica-agraria, 2 volumes, Turin 1869, 1871

literature

• George B. Kauffman, Raffaele Pentimalli, Sandro Doldi, Matthew D. Hall: Michele Peyrone (1813-1883), Discoverer of Cisplatin, Platinum Metals Rev., Volume 54, 2010, p. 250, online

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peyrone, overnight the action of ammonia on platinum chloride , Liebigs Annalen der Chemie, Volume 51, 1844, p.1 French translation Ann. Chim. Phys., Ser. 3, Volume 12, 1844, p. 193, English translation Medical Times, Volume 10, 1844, p. 381 (the translator Sheridan Muspratt was also in Liebig's laboratory). The sequel appeared in Liebigs Annalen, Volume 55, 1845, p. 205
2. ↑ Peyrone was director of the Royal Museum of Technology in Turin, founded in 1862, which had such rights. It was briefly associated with the Royal Technical Institute until 1867. When they split up, Peyrone wanted to go to the museum, but he was told to stay at the institute.