Stereochemistry of glucose

In 1891, Emil Fischer determined the stereochemistry of glucose using one of the most brilliant examples of reasoning in the history of chemistry. He chose (-b)-glucose for his study because it was the most common monosaccharide found in nature. 

Emil Fischer began his work on the stereochemistry of (+)-glucose in 1888, only 12 years after van t Hoff and Le Bel had made their proposal concerning the tetrahedral structure of carbon. Only a small body of data was available to Fischer at the beginning. 

Almost all chemists have studied at some point the problems associated with the structure and stereochemistry of glucose, but most chemists probably do not have this information at their fingertips, so we will take a page or two and review some pertinent facts here. 

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