Downloaded by GEORGETOWN UNIV on August 14, 2013 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: January 1, 1953 | doi: 10.1021/ba-1953-0008.ch001
INTRODUCTION This symposium was a unique event. There have been conferences on chemical nomenclature, of which the outstanding one was the Congress of Geneva on organic nomenclature, held in 1892. But as far as my knowledge goes this series of papers presented in New York in 1951 constitutes the first symposium on chemical nomenclature held anywhere. The fortunate circumstance that the Diamond Jubilee of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY occurred immediately
before the Sixteenth Conference of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry made it possible to give thé symposium a truly international character. Six different countries, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States, were represented among the eleven speakers. The three nomenclature commissions of the IUPAC were also represented, two by their presidents and one by its secretary. The letter of greeting from A. F . Holleman, former president of the Commission on the Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry, was written in his ninetieth year. W . P. Jorissen, former president of the Commission on the Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry, accepted an invitation to prepare a paper but was forced to withdraw for reasons of health. All the papers were read by their authors. The symposium covered, in broad range and authoritative manner, the developments and problems of present-day chemical nomenclature. It is indeed gratifying that the papers can be published together as a number of the ADVANCES IN CHEMISTRY SERIES. A U S T I N M. PATTERSON
In CHEMICAL NOMENCLATURE; Advances in Chemistry; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1953.
