FRIEDRICH ROCHLEDER (1819-74) MORITZ KOHN New York, New York Translated b y Henry M. Leicester
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Chemical Institute of the University of Vienna was built according to the plans of Josef Redtenbacher.' When Redtenbacher died (1870) Friedrich Rochleder, until then professor in the University of Prague, was chosen as his successor. Rochleder was born in Vienna (1819), studied medicine in the University of Vienna, and became Doctor of Medicine in 1842. He obtained hi chemical training in Liebig's laboratory in Giessen (1842 and 1843). I n 1845 he became professor in the newly founded Technical Academy in Lemberg, in 1849 he was called to the University of Prague as successor when Redtenbacher was called to Vienna, and in 1870 he became Redtenbacher's successor in Vienna. Rochleder was a full member of the Imperial Vienna Academy of Sciences from its establishment (1848). The new building of the Chemical Institute was not completed when Rochleder was called to Vienna and he occupied the building first in 1873. Rochleder and his pupil Heinrich Hlasiwetz2 (182575) founded the study of plant chemistry (phytochemistry) in Austria. Rochleder was especially interested in the study of substances in plants which were closely related botanically. In his activities in Prague he found in Hlasiwetz an excellent collaborator. Hlasiwetz, in his later independent work, continued under the influences which he had felt in Rochleder's laboratory. Rochleder worked on the constituents of the coffee bean, the horse chestnut, reactions of tannins, caffeine, and different glucosides. He also carried on work with Theodor Wertheim (1820-64) who from 1861 to 1864 was professor in the University of Graz. Rochleder and Wertheim reported in 1845 and 1849 on a volatile base which resulted from treating piperin from pepper with alkali. In 1853 Cahours characterized this base. nineridine. more carefullv. The discovery of the amines led td the recognition"that various plant substances contained methyl . groups - . united to the ,
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I KOHN,M., J. CHEM. EDUC., 24, 366 (1947). *KOHN,M.. ibid., 22, 55 (1945).
nitrogen. Rochleder obtained a base from caffeine which he called "formylin." Shortly afterward (1849) Wurtz showed that Rochleder's formylin was methyl amine. I n 1851 Rochleder isolated from madder root the glucoside of alizarin which he called mberythric acid. Schunck had already in 1848 obtained this substance, which he called rubian, in impure form. In 1854 Rochleder and Schwarz prepared pure saponine from Levantine soap root. Rochleder also published two theoretical communications (1853 and 1854). I n these he expressed the view that methyl is the fundamental radical. Other radicals can be considered to arise by stepwise substitution of methyl or phenyl for the hydrogen atoms of methyl. Unsaturated radicals, that is, those which can add hydrogen or halogens, were thought to be radicals which contained empty spaces (free valence units). When Rochleder died (1874), his assistant was Zdenko Hans Skraupa (1850-1910). I n 1874 appeared a preliminary communication by Rochleder and Skraup on cinchonine. Skraup continued this study after the death of his teacher. I n 1879 he published his work on the composition of cinchonine. Thus, shortly before his death, Rochleder led Skraup into the field of the quinine alkaloids, in which Skraup later became one of the chief investigators. If Rochleder had had a longer life, science could have expected much more from him. Destiny willed otherwise. Yet his pupils, H. Hlasiwetz and Zd. H. Skraup, were able to increase richly the values which they obtained from him. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I obtained the ~ i c t u r eof Friedrich Rochleder through the courtesy of the National Library in Vienna by trhe efforts of Mrs. Mathilde Raschka, who kindly acted as intermediary between the library and myself. KOHN,M., ibid., 20, 471 (1943).
