Kolbe, Herman

Theodor Curtius (1857-1928) was born in Duisberg, Germany, and received his doctorate at the University of Leipzig working with Herman Kolbe. He was professor at the universities of Kiel, Bonn, and Heidelberg (1898-1926). 

Kohlrausch-Walze - helical potentiometer Kolbe, Adolf Wilhelm Herman... 

In 1859, a chemist named Herman Kolbe identified the chemical structure of the compound that made willow hark an effective herbal medicine. Unfortunately, many people who took the medicine suffered upset stomachs from it. One such person was the father of a chemist named Felix Hoffman. To help his father, Hoffman changed the compound in such a way that it eased his father s arthritis without irritating his stomach. The new compound was acetyl-sahcyhc acid, now known as aspirin. 

The method can only be used for hydrocarbons with an even number of carbon atoms, although mixtures of two salts can be electrolysed to give a mixture of three products. The method was discovered by the German chemist Herman Kolbe (1818-84), who electrolysed pentanoic acid (C4H9COOH) in 1849 and obtained a hydrocarbon, which he assumed was the substance butyl C4H9 (actually octane, CsHjs). 

Like Nikolai N. Zinin (1812-1880) in St. Petersburg, German organic chemist Herman Kolbe (1818-1884) in Leipzig also rejected the periodic system. He said that it is possible to discuss and philosophize about the periodicity, and that one can easily construct a trite hypothesis that dazzles, especially if has an ingenious air to it. The splendor of it, however, vanishes when the prosaic experiment exposes the truth. ... 

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