profi l e in ~ chemi~tr y Alexander Borodin: Full-Time Chemist, Part-Time Musician Alvan D. White SlockporiCollege of Technology Stockpart,SKI 3UQ. U.K. "Which celebrated composer of classical music was also a professor of chemistry?" is a question often found in quiz hooks or asked on television quiz shows. I t is such a popular question that many people know that the answer is the Russian composer, Borodin (Fig. 1) ( I ) . A follow-up question on his contributions to chemistry would certainly produce very few correct answers because the biographies of Borodin concentrate almost entirely on his tale& as a musician, in spite of the fact that his musical activities were second to his duties as a chemist. In this short account..emvhasis . is e laced on Borodin's role as a chemist. Alexander Borodin was horn on November 12.1833. in St. Petersburg (m,dcm Leningradi. IIe was the illegitimateson of an lmwitiiin vrince. I.uka Cedianov. whu reeisrered him as the son of one of his servants, ~ o r f i r y~ o r o b i n He . was thus the serf of his own father. not an unusual occurrence in t b y his own mother, although those 1imr.s. Ht. was h r o u ~ h up she was IIIWJ),S referred tc, n.; "auntie". Some time before his death in 1843, Gedianov granted freedom to his son. As a child Borodin was taught by various tutors and developed a passion for both science and music. His interest in science began in typical fashion with attempts at making fireworks but gradually developed into a more serious activity. By the time he was about 13, he had built up a complete laboratory in the family apartment, much to the alarm of "auntie", who had to put up with the pungent chemical odors and the risks of fires. At the aae of 16 he vassed the entrance examination at the St. l'et&burg COI& and in he con~mencedasmexternal student in the S e ~ t e m b e1R5O r ~ i d i c aFaculty l of the Academy of Physicians. During the first two sears at the Academy, Borodin became nwre and more interested in chrmiitry. This was largely n i n rrsult of attending the lecture3 gi\,en by N. N. Zinin
326
Journal of Chemical Education
ROGER R.
FESTA
Northeast Missouri State University Kirksville. Ma. 63501
(often referred to as the "grandfather of Russian chemistry"). Eventually Zinin became Borodin's supervisor, and he realized that his student possessed all the attributes to become a brilliant chemist. Not surprisingly he viewed Borodin's musical activities with some concern. Indeed, he is reported to have said at one of his lectures "Mr. Borodin, i t would be better if you gave less thought to writing songs. I have placed all my hopes in you, and want you to he my successor one day. You waste too much time thinking about music. A man cannot serve two masters" (2). After graduating from the Academy of Physicians cum
Figure 1. Alexander Borodln in a photograph taken by Lorentz in St. Petersburg toward the end of 1880.
felt he ought to put in greater efforts for he discovered that Kekul6 was working in a closely related area. This duplicationgave rise tosome heated itatementi hy 110thBorodin (at a Russian ChemicalSociety meeting (Fig. 21) and Kekul6 (in Herichtr ( 4 ) ) . each accusir~gthe other of "borrowing" his work. In one set of experiments on acetaldehvde. Borodin discovered a substanie that possessed the proiertiesof both an nldehvde and an alcohol. This substance rlrhvdrated raoidlv . . to givk crotonaldehyde. ZCH,CHO
Figure 2. The organizers of the Russian Chemical Society in photograph taken January 5 . 1868. Borodin is fifth from the lefl in the back row.
eximia laude, Borodin was appointed t o a medical position at the Second Military Hospital. He took up this post in March 1856. However, it turned out that he was not at all suited to medical practice, and while a t the hospital he completed his first piece of research. This was on the chemical composition of hydrobenzamide and amarine. He also worked on a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and defended his thesis, "On the Similarity of Action of Arsenic Acid and Phosphoric Acid on the Human Organism", in May 1858. In October 1859, Zinin arranged for Borodin to undertake astudy tour in Europe togain experience prior to taking up a teaching post when he returned to Russia. I t was intended that he would work initially with Bunsen in Heidelberg, hut when he arrived there he found the conditions unsuitable so he worked in the laboratory of Erlenmeyer instead. He did, 'however, attend lectures given by such eminent men as Bunsen, Helmholtz, and Kirchhoff. The following year he set off with Zinin and Mendeleev on a tour of southern Germany and Switzerland. The three Russian scientists went to an international congress of chemists in Karlsruhe and, despite his young age, Borodin was elected as a member of the Congressional Committee. At this congress, Cannizarro presented an improved version of Brrzelius'atomic weight scale and also pointed out the importance of Avogadro's hypothesis (3),published half a century earlier hut widely ignored. About this time, Borodin also visited Paris, where he was able to see and hear other famous scholars such as Regnanlt, Dumas, and Pasteur. Durine his stav in Germanv. .. in snrine . .. 1861. Borodin met and fell in love with a brilliant young Russian pianist, Ekaterina I'rotonooova. Ekaterina did not eniov . " eood - health. so the two of tie; went to Pisa, Italy, which provided a mbre amenable climate. Borodin had intended to leave Ekaterina in Italy, but when he was given a position a t the university, she returned with him to St. Petersburp. Thev eventually married and brought up two adopted dauihters. The results of his work in Pisa appeared in three papers in I1 Nuouo Cimento, published in 1862. These papers were concerned with a method of fluorinating organic compounds and some reactions involvine zinc ethvl com~ounds. On his return tokussis i1186", korudin wasappointed to a nrofcss~rshinat the Academv of Medicine and Sureerv. - .He lectured man& in organic chekistry and is reported to have impressed his students with his lectures and his brilhant. fascinating personality. He also concentrated on research and, of course, music. His research activities were centered on the condensation reactions of aldehydes. At one point he
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CH,CH(OH)CH,CHO %CH,CH=CHCHO
However. he did not pursue this particular reaction anv further bkcause the "aid01 reaction"had been reported previously by Wurtz, who gave considerable praise to Borodin's work (5). He concentrated more on the reactions of the higher aldehydes valeraldehyde (C4H&HO) and oenanthal ( c ~ H ~ ~ c the H opresence-of ~ ~ ~ bases and was able to identify a number of polymeric reaction products. In the autumn of 1872, Borodin turned his attention to a new activity. Under the modest title of "Course in Obstetrics", an advanced medical course for women was inaugurated. This was the first of its kind in Russia, and Borodin was the professor of chemistry from its inception. He took a keen interest in the organization of the program, and he did all he could to make sure that the necessary equipment was available. He also organized financial help for poor students, including the running of charity concerts. Borodin's final important piece of chemical research was started in the winter of 1878. This was the development of a method for analyzing the nitrogen content of clinical samples. This involved the oxidation of the urea present to nitrogen using a mixture of bromine and sodium hydroxide. This method was widely adopted in biochemical and clinical laboratories for many years. The very last piece of organization that Borodin undertook was a fancy dress dance for his two adopted daughters. This was held on February 27,1887, in one of the chemistry lecture rooms at the academy. Borodin turned up in a darkred, Russian-style woolen shirt and blue baggy trousers. At the party he collapsed and, despite the attention of his colleay;es from the academy, all a;tempts t~ revi\.e him failed. Ironically, the post mortem examination, u,hich revealed the cause of death-as heart attack, was carried out in the same room where the dance had been held. His esteem as a teacher was such that students from the academy carried his coffin all the way to the cemetery for his funeral. Acknowledgment I would like to thank John Canner and George Wilkinson for help in translating Borodin's original papers. Literature Cited 1.
(a)Kohn,H. W.J . C h ~ m . E d u ~ . 1 9 7 2 , 4 9 , 7 2 8 . ( b ) F ~ . l 9 8 2 ,
Further Readlng A general account of Borodin's life can be found in Borodin bv S. Dianin. Oxford Universitv Press (1963). (Dianin's mother was Borodin'sadopted dauihter and his father, A. P. n i a n ~ nwas . one of Horodin's students). A complete list of Borodin's scientific papers was given by A. P. Dianin a t the end of a biographical note in Zhurnal Russkouo Fiziko-Khimichestoua Obshchestua 1888,4,379.
Volume 64
Number 4
April 1967
327
