Robert Otto (chemist)

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Friedrich Wilhelm Robert Otto (born August 18, 1837 in Braunschweig ; † February 14, 1907 there ) was a German chemist and pharmacist .

Life

Robert Otto, born in Braunschweig as the son of Friedrich Julius Otto (1809-1870), professor of chemistry at the Collegium Carolinum , attended the Martino-Katharineum grammar school in his hometown until three years before graduating from high school. He then completed a three-year apprenticeship as a pharmacist in Wolfenbüttel . He made up his Abitur at the Collegium Carolium in Braunschweig, where he studied natural sciences for a semester. In the winter semester of 1858/59 he moved to the University of Göttingen , began studying chemistry and joined the Hannovera fraternity . When his academic teacher Heinrich Limpricht accepted a position at the University of Greifswald , he also changed universities and graduated there in 1862 with a doctorate. phil. finished his studies. The subject of his dissertation was investigations into some decomposition products of hippuric acid . In the following year he held an assistant position, then he qualified as a professor in the fields of chemistry and pharmacy without succeeding in gaining a foothold in Greifswald as a private lecturer or associate professor.

He was anything but averse to accepting a call from the Collegium Carolinum shortly after his father's death to become his father's successor as a professor of pharmacy and applied chemistry in Braunschweig in 1870. From 1872 to 1877 he was director of the college for pharmacy. After the polytechnic had become a technical college in 1877 , he held the position of board member (dean) of the pharmacy department from 1881 to 1885 and from 1891 to 1895. In addition, he succeeded in ensuring that the teaching and research facilities for chemistry and pharmacy were adequately taken into account in the structural expansion of the Braunschweig Technical University.

When Robert Otto was appointed to Braunschweig in 1870, he took on another task that his father had previously looked after. When he was appointed medical assessor, he also became a member of the senior medical staff of the Duchy of Braunschweig and head of the pharmacy department there. In 1880 he was promoted to the Medical Council, in 1894 to the Secret Medical Council. In this function, which occasionally also concerned questions of public health, he was a member of the commission for the examination of pharmacists and chairman of the examination committee for pharmacists' assistants.

In 1890 Robert Otto was one of the founders of the German Pharmaceutical Society .

The Leopoldina - Academy of Natural Sciences - in Halle made him a member in 1893.

In 1876 an institute employee knocked him down from behind. The serious injuries that Robert Otto suffered in the process affected him greatly from then on. With iron self-discipline he fulfilled his professional obligations for years. When a cure in 1898 brought no improvement, he asked for his retirement, which was granted on April 1, 1899.

plant

Otto synthesized the first organic mercury compounds ( mercury diphenyl and mercury naphthyl ) in 1868 . He mainly dealt with sulfur-oxygen compounds (synthesis of benzenesulfinic acid , toluenesulfinic acid and reduction of benzenesulfinic acid to thiophenol in 1877, elucidation of the composition of sulfinic acids ).

Honors

  • 1893 Awarded the title of Privy Councilor
  • 1898 Award of the ducal Braunschweig Commander's Cross, 2nd class, of the Order of Henry the Lion
  • 1898 Installation of the portrait bust of Robert Otto in the lecture hall for pharmaceutical chemistry, which was donated by his students and created by the sculptor Ernst Müller-Braunschweig (destroyed in the Second World War by the effects of the war)
  • 2007 Exhibition “Robert Otto - Braunschweig Chemist and Pharmacist” on the 100th anniversary of his death by the University Library of Braunschweig

Publications (selection)

Robert Otto published further editions of specialist books that his father had written or on which he had worked. The first-mentioned area includes

The latter area includes that written by Thomas Graham , translated and edited by Julius Otto

  • Comprehensive textbook on inorganic chemistry, which was put on the market in two volumes in 1863. This work, now edited by Robert Otto, was published in 1885 by Vieweg und Sohn, Braunschweig, under the title Graham-Otto's Textbook of Chemistry .

In addition, Robert Otto wrote notable contributions to the one edited by Hermann von Fehling

  • Concise dictionary of chemistry. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1875–1913.

That too

  • Encyclopaedic Concise Dictionary of Technical Chemistry, which is based on the Dictionery of Chemistry founded by James Sheridan Muspratt and published from the 4th German edition by Bruno Kerl and Friedrich Stohmann , contains some chapters written by Robert Otto.

Incidentally, Robert Otto wrote over 220 articles on chemical or pharmaceutical questions, problems or findings in the relevant scientific journals of his time.

literature

  • Robert Otto: Braunschweigisches Magazin. 1908, No. 2, pp. 15f.
  • Helmuth Albrecht: Catalogus Professorum of the Technical University Carolus-Wilhelmina in Braunschweig. Part 1: Teachers at the Collegium Carolinum 1746–1877. in: Contributions to the history of the Carolo-Wilhelmina. Volume VIII, Braunschweig, 1986, p. 62f.
  • Walter Kertz: Technical University of Braunschweig. From the Collegium Carolinum to the Technical University 1745–1995. Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, Zurich, New York 1995, p. 280.
  • Henning Tegtmeyer : Directory of members of the fraternity Hannovera Göttingen 1848–1998 . Düsseldorf 1998
  • Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Günter Scheel (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7752-5838-8 , p. 454 .

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member entry by Robert Otto at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on February 9, 2016.
  2. ↑ Pötsch, article Robert Otto in: Winfried R. Pötsch (lead), Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexicon of important chemists , Harri Deutsch 1989, p. 331
  3. ↑ Full text in Google Book Search
personal data
SURNAME Otto, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Otto, Friedrich Wilhelm Robert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist and pharmacist
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 1907
Place of death Braunschweig