Lieben, Adolf

Butyric acid is a carboxylic acid also classified as a fatty acid. It exists in two isomeric forms as shown previously, but this entry focuses on n-butyric acid or butanoic acid. It is a colorless, viscous, rancid-smelling liquid that is present as esters in animal fats and plant oils. Butyric acid exists as a glyceride in butter, with a concentration of about 4% dairy and egg products are a primary source of butyric acid. When butter or other food products go rancid, free butyric acid is liberated by hydrolysis, producing the rancid smell. It also occurs in animal fat and plant oils. Butyric acid gets its name from the Latin butyrum, or butter. It was discovered by Adolf Lieben (1836—1914) and Antonio Rossi in 1869. 

The story was told years later, in letters to Anschutz, by Adolf Lieben, who was there at the time, and by Albert Ladenburg, who had the story directly from Wurtz (Anschutz, "Couper," 200-201). Lieben also mentioned that Couper had privately shown him the manuscript of the paper for comment, even before he had given it to Wurtz for publication. Lieben could therefore verify Couper s independence from Kekul at first hand. 

Since Hoffmann was in Heideiberg for only one semester before graduating and taking a position in private industry, we can place this testimony in the summer of 1856. Besides Kekule and Hoffmann, the circle referred to included Erlenmeyer, Baeyer, Lothar Meyer, Ludwig Carius, the Swiss Hans Landolt, the Austrians Adolf Lieben and Leopold von Pebal, the German-Russian Friedrich Beilstein, the Russian Leon Shish-kov, the American Frank Storer, and the Italians Angelo Pavesi and Ag-ostino Frapolli (Frapolli, Pebal, and Erlenmeyer were all three to five years older than Kekule Lieben, Beilstein, and Baeyer, several years younger). 

Presidents were always elected for one year. Among them were top scientists of Austria such as the above-mentioned founders, the physicists Ernst Mach and Ludwig Boltzmann, the chemists Adolf Lieben, Josef Maria Eder and Rudolf Wegscheider, the physiologist Siegmund Exner and others. 

Several articles discussed achievements of Austrian chemists, often in connection with obituaries or when a chemist was awarded the Lieben Prize. One of the obituaries was for the chemist Adolf Lieben, who had initiated the Ignaz Lieben Preis in 1863 from money inherited from his father Ignaz Lieben. It was at that time a completely new idea to award a prize for excellence in science. The Lieben Foundation was controlled by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. OCHZ always reported on the sessions of the mathematical-scientific class of the academy and also on the winners of the Lieben Prize. For example OCHZ reported on the Lieben Prize for Rudolf Wegscheider, professor at the University of Vienna and president of VOCH since 1905, and Hans Meyer, professor at the University of Prague, who later died in the concentration camp Theresienstadt in 1942. Wegscheider had published papers on the esterification of various adds and Meyer about the use of thionyl chloride in organic synthesis. 

Zeisel, S. (1916), Adolf Lieben, Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 49, 835-892. 

Ann.y 1859, cxi, 121 (prep, dichloroethyl ether) 1865, cxxxiii, 287 (with Bauer), act. of ZnEtg. Adolf Lieben (Vienna 3 December 1836-6 June 1914), professor in Palermo (1865), Turin (1867), Prague (1871) and Vienna (1875) Zeisel, Ber., 1916, xlix, 835-92 R. Meyer, (i), 175 ArcheioHy 1936, xviii, 188 (correspondence with Cannizzaro, Paternb, and Naquet). 

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