Wislicenus, Johannes

Willm, Edmond (1833-1910), 104 Willstatter, Richard (1872-1942), 17 Wind, Comelis Harm (1867-1911), 212 Winkler, Lajos (1863-1939), 164 Windier, Christian (1873-1968), 87 Wislicenus, Johannes (1835-1902), 170, 229... 

Weizmann, Chaim, 231 Welsbach, Auer von, 80 Wild, Wilhelm, 97, 102 Wilfarth, Hermann, 14-15 Willstatter, Richard, 103, 231 Winogradsky, Sergei Nikolaevich, 16-17 Wislicenus, Johannes, 86 Wohler, Friedrich, 6 Wolf, Hans, 94-95... 

On Johannes Wislicenus, see Lachman, The Spirit of Organic Chemistry, 67. E. C. C. Baly and C. H. Desch, "The Ultra-Violet Absorption Spectra of Certain Enol-Keto-Tautomerides, Pt. II," JCS 87 (1905) 766784. 

P. J. Ramberg, Johannes Wislicenus, atomism and the philosophy of chemistry , Bull. Hist. Chem., 1994,15/16, 45-54. 

In 1876, van t Hoff was appointed to a junior-faculty position at the Veterinary College of the University of Utrecht in Holland. In 1877, the 1875 French translation of his work was translated into German. He received very strong support from Johann Wislicenus at Wurzberg but a far different reception from Herr Professor Doktor Hermann Kolbe at Leipzig ... 

Johannes Adolf Wislicenus (1835-1902), which placed the authority of an older and particularly well-respected scientist behind the theory. 

Hjelt s successor, Ossian Aschan, had also studied in Germany under the same supervisors, including Johannes Wislicenus, as many other Finnish chemists did at the time. Aschan produced an enormous scientific output of articles and monographs. He published some 250 works, most of them dealing with camphors and terpenes. His book on alicyclic compounds is regarded as his most significant work. ... 

Many chemists adopted the views and approaches of Kekul6 and Wurtz. The Zurich chemist Johannes Wislicenus provided an appropriate postscript to the exchange between Kolbe and Wurtz by summarizing the various proposed formulas for lactic acid, including his own, and then commenting ... 

Their correspondence—as well as their friendship— was over. When Kolbe died a year later, his successor at Leipzig was none other than Johannes Wislicenus. Jupiter s children had won the day. 

However, in 1869 the Zurich chemist Johannes Wislicenus synthesized a new compound, a third distinct isomer of lactic acid, and showed that it had to have the constitution that had hypothetically been imputed to "meat" lactic acid. According to a secondhand report, Wislicenus inferred that "meat" lactic therefore had to have exactly the same constitution as that which had already firmly been established for "milk" lactic. The two distinct lactic acids derived respectively from meat and from milk were thus henceforth known as what were called "absolute" isomers—that is, isomers that possessed exactly the same structures, as far as one could tell, the source of whose isomerism therefore remaining mysterious. Wislicenus concluded that the isomerism must somehow be explained by "the different arrangements of their atoms in space." For instance, perhaps density measurements would show that the arrangements of the atoms of the different isomers fill space more or less efficiently, even though the formulas are identical. ... 

After van t Hoff published his theories on the tetrahedral carbon atom and on optical and geometric isomerism in 1874, much work was done to confirm his ideas by Johannes Adolf Wislicenus (1835-1902). He showed how the chemistry of maleic and fumaric acids was best explained if they were geometric isomers. The isomerism of Pasteur s tartaric acid was explained by proposing that it possessed two asymmetric carbon atoms, and that the meso form was inactive by internal compensation. Paratartaric acid was also known as racemic acid since it sometimes crystallises out from wine (the Latin racemus means a bunch of grapes). Inactive mixtures of optical antipodes are now known as racemic mixtures. 

Johannes Wislicenus (Klein-Eichstedt, nr. Querfiirt, 24 June 1835-Leipzig, 5 December 1902), of Polish descent, began to study at Halle with W. Heintz. He had to leave Germany for America with his father in 1853 on account of the religious opinions of his parent (a Lutheran pastor. He was Horsfcrd s assistant at Harvard (1853-4), opened an analytical laboratory, and lectured at the Mechanics Institute in New York. He returned to Germany in 1856, studied at Zurich and was Heintz s assistant at Halle (1857-9). He left for Zurich in 1859, was professor in the School of Industries there (1861), associate (1864) (1867) professor in the university, and... 

---