Johannes Wislicenus

Johannes Wislicenus
Johannes Wislicenus
Born	24 June 1835 Kleineichstedt, Prussian Saxony
Died	5 December 1902
Nationality	German
Known for	stereochemistry
Awards	Davy Medal in 1898
Scientific career
Fields	chemistry
Doctoral students	W.H. Perkin, Jr.

Johannes Wislicenus (24 June 1835, Kleineichstedt – 5 December 1902) was a German chemist, most famous for his work in early stereochemistry. The son of the radical protestant theologian Gustav Wislicenus, Johannes was born in Kleineichstedt (now part of Querfurt, Saxony-Anhalt) in Prussian Saxony, and entered Halle University in 1853. In October 1853 he emigrated to America with his family. For a brief time he acted as assistant to Harvard chemist Eben Horsford, and in 1855 was appointed lecturer at the Mechanics' Institute in New York. Returning to Europe in 1856, he continued to study chemistry with Wilhelm Heinrich Heintz at the University of Halle. In 1860, he began lecturing at the University of Zürich, and by 1868 he was Professor of Chemistry at both the university and the Swiss Polytechnical Institute. In 1872, he succeeded Adolph Strecker in the chair of chemistry at University of Würzburg, and in 1885, he succeeded Hermann Kolbe as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Leipzig, where he died in December 1902.

By the late 1860s, Wislicenus devoted his research to organic chemistry. His work on the isomeric lactic acids from 1868 to 1872 resulted in the discovery of two substances with different physical properties but with an identical chemical structure. He called this difference "geometrical isomerism." He would later promote J. H. van't Hoff's theory of the tetrahedral carbon atom, believing that it, together with the supposition that there are "specially directed forces, the affinity-energies," which determine the relative position of atoms in the molecule, afforded a method by which the spatial arrangement of atoms in particular cases may be ascertained by experiment. While at Würzburg, Wislicenus developed the use of ethyl aceto acetate in organic synthesis.

In 1898 Wislicenus was awarded the Davy Medal by the Royal Society of London.

References

• Carpenter, K. J. (1997). "Protein cannot be the sole source of muscular energy (Fick, Wislicenus and Frankland, 1866)". J. Nutr. 127 (5 Supplement): 1020S–1021S. PMID 9164290.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

• Royal Society (Great Britain), (1907). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Harrison and Son.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) - Proceedings of the Royal Society, A, 1907, volume 78, pages iii – xii
• Ernst Beckmann (1905). Johannes Wislicenus. Verlag Chemie.-Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, 1905, volume 37. pp. 4861-4946