Organic synthesis, history

Microwave-Assisted Organic Synthesis (MAOS) - A Brief History... 

In the particular case of natural products, once all the possibilities that the "logic-centred methodology" offers have been explored, it is pertinent to consider the biogenetic pathways by which they are synthesised in Nature since these can be a source of inspiration and may introduce an intrinsic element of elegance into the synthetic plans. In this context, tropine (131 offers a unique example in the history of organic synthesis. In 1902 this rather simple alkaloid was synthesised by Willstatter from cycloheptanone [8] through a sequence of about twenty steps, as shown in Scheme 3.4. 

Carbon-carbon bond formation ortho to a directing group has a long history in organic synthesis. Tsuyoshi Satoh of the Tokyo University of Science has reported (Tetrahedron Lett. 2004,45, 5785) a new protocol, based on the reaction of a deprotonated aniline such as 8 with a chloro sulfoxide such as... 

The history of organic synthesis is generally traced back to Wohler s synthesis of the natural product urea from ammonium isocyanate in 1828. This laid to rest the vis vitalis (vital force) theory, which maintained that a substance produced by a living organism could not be produced synthetically. The discovery had monumental significance, because it showed that, in principle, aU organic compounds are amenable to synthesis in the laboratory. 

M. E. Bowden and T. Benfey, Robert Bums Woodward and the Art of Organic Synthesis, Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry, Philadelphia, PA, 1992. 

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