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See also:WURTZ, See also:CHARLES ADOLPHE (1817–1884) , See also:French chemist, was See also:born on the 26th of See also:November 1817 at Wolfisheim, near See also:Strassburg, where his See also:father was Lutheran pastor. When he See also:left the See also:Protestant gymnasium at Strassburg in 1834, his father allowed him to study See also:medicine as next best to See also:theology. He devoted himself specially to the chemical See also:side of his profession with such success that in 1839 he was appointed " Chef See also:des travaux chimiques " at the Strassburg See also:faculty of medicine. After graduating there as M.D. in 1843, with a thesis on See also:albumin and See also:fibrin, he studied for a See also:year under J. von See also:Liebig at See also:Giessen, and then went to See also:Paris, where he worked in J. B. A. See also:Dumas's private laboratory. In 1845 he became assistant to Dumas at the Ecole de Medecine, and four years later began to give lectures on organic See also:chemistry in his See also:place. His laboratory at the Ecole de Medecine was very poor, and to supplement it he opened a private one in 185o in the See also:Rue Garenciere; but soon afterwards the See also:house was sold, and the laboratory' had to be abandoned. In 185o he received the professorship of chemistry at the new Institut Agronomique at See also:Versailles, but the Institut was abolished in 1852. In the following year the See also:chair of organic chemistry at the faculty of medicine became vacant by the resignation of Dumas and the chair of See also:mineral chemistry and See also:toxicology by the See also:death of M. J. B. See also:Orfila. The two were See also:united, and Wurtz appointed to the new See also:post. In 1866 he undertook the duties of See also:dean of the faculty of medicine. In this position. he exerted himself to secure the rearrangement and reconstruction of the buildings 'devoted to scientific instruction, urging that in the See also:provision of properly equipped teaching laboratories See also:France was much behind See also:Germany (see his See also:report See also:Les Hautes Etudes pratiques clans les universiles allemandes, 1870). In 1875, resigning the See also:- OFFICE (from Lat. officium, " duty," " service," a shortened form of opifacium, from facere, " to do," and either the stem of opes, " wealth," " aid," or opus, " work ")
office of dean but retaining the See also:title of honorary dean, he became the first occupant of the chair of organic chemistry, which he induced the See also:government to establish at the See also:Sorbonne; but he had See also:great difficulty in obtaining an adequate laboratory, and the See also:building ultimately provided was not opened until after his death, which happened at Paris on the loth of May x884. Wurtz was an honorary member of almost every scientific society in See also:Europe. He was one of the founders of the Paris Chemical Society (1858), was its first secretary and thrice served as its See also:president. In 188o he was See also:vice-president and in 1881 president of the See also:Academy, which he entered in 1867 in See also:succession to T. J. See also:Pelouze. He was made a senator in 1881.
Wurtz's first published See also:paper was on hypophosphorous See also:acid (1842), and the continuation of his See also:work on the acids of See also:phosphorus (1845) resulted in the See also:discovery of sulphophosphoric acid and phosphorus oxychloride, as well as of See also:copper hydride. But his See also:original work was mainly in the domain of organic chemistry. Investigation of the cyanic See also:ethers (1848) yielded a class of substances which opened out a new See also:- FIELD (a word common to many West German languages, cf. Ger. Feld, Dutch veld, possibly cognate with O.E. f olde, the earth, and ultimately with root of the Gr. irAaror, broad)
- FIELD, CYRUS WEST (1819-1892)
- FIELD, DAVID DUDLEY (18o5-1894)
- FIELD, EUGENE (1850-1895)
- FIELD, FREDERICK (18o1—1885)
- FIELD, HENRY MARTYN (1822-1907)
- FIELD, JOHN (1782—1837)
- FIELD, MARSHALL (183 1906)
- FIELD, NATHAN (1587—1633)
- FIELD, STEPHEN JOHNSON (1816-1899)
- FIELD, WILLIAM VENTRIS FIELD, BARON (1813-1907)
field in organic chemistry, for, by treating those ethers with See also:caustic potash, he obtained methylamine, the simplest organic derivative of See also:ammonia (1849), and later (1851) the See also:compound ureas. In 1855, reviewing the various substances that had been obtained from See also:glycerin, he reached the conclusion that glycerin is a See also:body of alcoholic nature formed on the type of three molecules of See also:water, as See also:common See also:alcohol is on that of one, and was thus led (1856) to the discovery of the See also:glycols or diatomic See also:alcohols, bodies similarly related to the See also:double water type. This discovery he worked out very thoroughly in investigations of See also:ethylene See also:oxide and the poly-ethylene alcohols. The oxidation of the glycols led him to homologues of lactic acid, and a controversy about the constitution of the latter with H. See also:Kolbe resulted in the discovery of many new facts
and in a better understanding of the relations between the oxyand the amido-acids. In 1867 Wurtz prepared neurine synthetically by the See also:action of trimethylamine on glycol-chlorhydrin, and in 1872 he discovered aldol, pointing out its double See also:character as at once an alcohol and an aldehyde. In addition to this See also:list of some of the new substances he prepared, reference may be made to his work on abnormal vapour densities. While working on the olefines he noticed that a See also:change takes place in the See also:density of the vapour of amylene hydrochloride, hydrobromide, &c., as the temperature is increased, and in the See also:gradual passage from a See also:gas of approximately normal density to one of See also:half-normal density he saw a powerful See also:argument in favour of the view that abnormal vapour densities, such as are exhibited by sal-ammoniac or phosphorus pentachloride. are to be explained by See also:dissociation. From 1865 onwards he treated this question in several papers, and in particular maintained the dissociation of vapour of See also:chloral See also:hydrate, in opposition to H. Sainte-Claire Deville and M. See also:Berthelot.
For twenty-one years (1852-1872) Wurtz published in theAnnates de chimie et de physique abstracts of chemical work done out of France. The publication of his great Dictionnaire de chimie pure et appliquee, in which he was assisted by many other French chemists, was begun in 1869 and finished in 1878; two supplementary volumes were issued 188o-1886, and in 1892 the publication of a second supplement was begun. Among his books are Chimie medicale (1864), Lecons ilementaires de chimie moderne (1867), Theorie des atomes dons la conception du monde (1874), La Theorie atomique (1878), Progres de l'industrie des matieres colorantes artificielles (1876) and Traite de chimie biologique (188o-1885). His Histoire des doctrines chimiques, the See also:introductory discourse to his Dictionnaire, but published separately in 1868, opens with the well-known dictum, " La chimie est une See also:science francaise."
For his See also:life and work, with a list of his publications, see Charles See also:Friedel's memoir in the Bulletin de la Societe Chimique (1885); also A. W. von See also:Hofmann in the See also:Bee. deut. chem. Gesellsch. (1887), re-printed in vol. iii. of his Zur Erinnerung an vorangegangene Freunde (1888).
End of Article: WURTZ, CHARLES ADOLPHE (1817–1884)
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