Beilstein, Menshutkin and Mendeleev: End of an era

HIST 2

David E. Lewis, lewisd@uwec.edu, Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI 54702
The four-month period from October, 1906, to February, 1907, witnessed the deaths of three of the founding members of the Russian Physical-Chemical Society: Friedrich Konrad (Fedor Fedorovich) Beilstein, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Menshutkin, and Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev. This brief period also signaled the end of an era in Russian chemistry in general and Russian organic chemistry in particular. Of the remaining organic chemists who had reached their zenith during the 19th century, only Zaitsev remained, and he, too, would be deceased by the end of the decade. The young chemists who would replace these 19th-century giants all survived well into the Soviet era; two (Chichibabin and Ipatiev) would flee their mother country and be stripped of their standing as Academicians. The three chemists in the title of this paper shared a complex relationship that will be explored in this talk.
 

General Papers
8:45 AM-12:00 PM, Sunday, August 19, 2007 Seaport -- Plaza C, Oral

Sci-Mix
8:00 PM-10:00 PM, Monday, August 20, 2007 BCEC -- Exhibit Hall - B2, Sci-Mix

Division of the History of Chemistry

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007