Beilstein First edition

Beilsteins Handbuch der Organischen Chemie evolved from the original two-volume first edition compiled by Friedrich Konrad Beilstein (1838-1906) and published between 1881 and 1883 to a multi-volume behemoth, which, when publication of the printed version was terminated in 1998, spanned the literature of organic chemistry in 503 volumes and contained 440,814 pages. 

Beilstein, F. P. (1838-1906). A German chemist noted for his compilation Handbuch der Organ-ischen Chemie, the first edition of which appeared in 1880. A multivolume compendium of the properties and reactions of organic compounds, it has been revised several times and remains a unique and fundamental contribution to chemical literature. 

The first three editions of Beilstein are obsolete. The fourth edition (vierte Auflage) covers the literature from its beginnings through 1909. This edition, called das Hauptwerk, consists of 27 volumes. The compounds are arranged in order of a system too elaborate to discuss fully here. The compounds are divided into three divisions which are further subdivided into systems ... 

The references which we obtain in a successful search are of various kinds. The main work of Richter , as already mentioned, first refers us to Beilstein s Handbuch der organischen Chemie, which may now be briefly described. The third edition of this work, in four volumes and as many supplementary volumes, gives a brief description of all pure organic compounds prepared up to July 1, 1899, with their physical constants, methods important reactions, and all references to the literature. 

The Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index, commonly referred to as CASSI, gives details of the journals and related literature cited in Chemical Abstracts since 1907. In addition, CASSI contains entries for those publications covered by Chemische Zentralblatt and its predecessors from 1830-1969 and the publications cited by Beilstein prior to 1907. The most recent printed cumulative edition of CASSI spanned the period 1907-2004. Printed supplements to CASSI were published quarterly from 2005 to 2009. The fourth quarterly supplement each year cumulated and replaced the preceding three supplements, and was effectively an annual update. Publication of the printed edition of CASSI ceased in 2009, but CASSI remains available and updated in a searchable CD-ROM format (CASSI on CD, first produced in the 1990s). 

Another approach was taken by Winchell (1943, 1987), who prepared a compilation of all organic compounds whose optical properties are sufficiently well known to permit identification by optical methods . The compilation is arranged in the same fashion as the fourth edition of Beilstein s Handbuch der organischen Chemie (Beilstein 1978), and at the time of its first publication was meant to include all organic compounds whose indices of refraction had been measured. Since indices of refraction differ among them, polymorphs could be easily recognized by different optical properties. The book does contain references to primary sources and drawings of crystals, as illustrated in a typical entry Fig. 1.2. 

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