Ditte, Alfred

Compt. Rend., 1883, xcvi, 96,1048-1888, cvi, 270 Alfred Ditte (Rennes, 20 October 1843-Paris, November 1908), professor of physics (1873) and chemistry (1879) in Caen, later professor in the Sorbonne, published much work on inorganic chemistry Metzner, BuU. Soc. Chim., 1909, V, I (portr., bibl., interesting account of teaching in Paris under Debray). 

Alfred Ditte, Revue des cours scientifiques de la France et de I itranger, 46, N°20, 15 nov. 1890, 209-219. Ditte was a professor of chemistry at the Sorbonne and author of a Traitiilimentaire de chimie fondie sur les principes de la thermochimie [A Textbook of Chemistry, founded on the Principles of Thermochemistry] (Dunod, 1884) Ditte advocated a mechanical view of individual elements as he concluded that each substance was a step in a continuum on ponderable matter and that a natural classification should he based on the quantity of movement and mass. 

Alfred Ditte, Introduction a I itude des mitaux Lemons professies a la Faculti des sciences [An Introduction to the Studies of Metals Lessons Taught in the Faculty of Sciences] (Paris, Soci t d ditions scientifique, 1902), 473. 

Other examples of the broad use of atomicity to classify the elements are provided by Anders Lundgren in his paper on Mendeleev in Sweden in this book, which discusses the classification of Christian W. Blomstrand. More evidence can be found in the contemporary discussion of chemical classifications see Raoul Jagneaux, Histoire de la chimie, t. II (Paris Baudry, 1891), 3-29, in which Mendeleevs periodic system is included. See also Alfred Ditte, Les Classifications Chimiques, Revue Scientifique 46 (1890) 609-619, and William Oechsner de Coninck, Notes et documents de Chimie gdndrale (Montpellier Masson, 1903). 

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