BOOK REVIEWS chemistry written entirely necording t o the new t,heury. There is nu need t o give details of Foureroy's scientific work. There were no st,art,ling or important discoveries; he was an indefatignhle worker hut his forte lay in other fields. The details of his pnhlished experiments ran he found in the volume here under review. The author has ~~hvioosly ploughed through the great mass of Fourcrag's published papers, a tedious tsnk whirh undoubt,edly required s. goodly supply of patience. He has also discussed a t length the principal books authored by Fourcroy m d given details
of his lertnre courses. A rhapter is devoted to the work on animal and medical chemistry and a cumpanion chapter deals with the studies on vegetable rhemist,ry. Murh of this work as well as that in the inorganic field was done in coilahomtion with X. L. Vauquelin (1763-1820), the discoverer of chromium. The latter was n better lahoratury chemist than Fouren,y (his teacher) and i t may well be said t h a t Vauquelin was Fuurcroy's greatest discovery. An outatanding feature of this biography is the Rihliography whirh rmtains 342 items written hy or about Faurcro-. The aut,hor patently has thoroughly rombed the literature and the rare with whirh he has done his hamework is amply reflected
in the excellence of the book. It is proper to point out t h a t he has scrupuluusly eramined the evidence regarding the part played by- Fonrrroy a t t,he time of I,avoisier's execution and romes t o the conclusion that his legal murder was :t great shock to Fourcroy, who was helpless to aid hi8 colleague b e r s u ~ e the latter was one of the detested F e r m i m yi.nP,nar and therefore in a hqxless prteitim.
RALPHE. OESPER Cniwrsilg qi Cineinnali Cincinnnli, Ohio
Great Chemists
Edited by Edimrd Farber. Intersrienre Publishers, Ine., New Yurk, I!161. xxvi 1642 pp. Figurer. 16 X 24 cm. $29.50.
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I n this imposing and unique volume, Eduard Farber has sssembled an impressive collection of biographies by a notable list of contributors. Covering a span of more than three millenia, the entries range from Babylonian Chemists by the s p e d i s t in this area, Martin Levey, trt E. A. Guggenheim's study of Siels Bjerrum, who died in 1958. Most of the 114 chapters, 22 of whirh have been translated h y Farher, are devoted t o single individuals, but. some encompass several chemists, e.g., .4arrm Ihde's American Chemists a t the Turn of the Century. .4lmost every chapter is provided with a portrait, unfrrtunately on annoyingly translucent paper, as is the entire book. Four interludes hy the editor, Philosophers and Pmetitianers, Philosophical Alchemists and Praetiral Metallurgists, The Chemist's Lnnguagc, and Scientists and Industrialists add unity t o the volume. The chapter titles are sometimes deceptive; the long essa. on Armstrong is actually concerned eztensively with Laurent, Gerhardt, Frankland, Kolhe, KekulP, and their theories of chemical bonding. The Table of Cantents, therefore, gives only r. hint of the scope of the work; one can best tap its gold mine of information by consulting the enrellent index from Abbaside t o Zosimus. The essays vary greatly in objectivity, some being obibuary notices, eulogies, nr memorial addresses, which tend tr, overevaluat,e their subject. Often length is not proportional t o the importanre of the suhjeet. J . K.Partington's srhalnrly 32page essay on Joan Bxptista van Helmont contains 169 notes and referenres, while August IiekulB is disposed of in three pages; the Iiekull article is followed,
~ u r o p & industrial chemists such Bosrh, Perkin, and Ro1va.y are inrluded, but not t o the same extent as are Americans, e.g., Bsekeland, Dow, Frasrh, Little, Midgley, and Teeple, all discussed by the authority on thissubject, Williams Haynes. I n fact, 8. legitimate rrit,icisn~might he the predominance of American chemists, many of whom hardly deserve t o rank with such giants as Lavoisier, Berzelius, Liebig, and van't Hoff. One is grateful for the inrlw (Continued o n page .4400)
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BOOK REVIEWS sion of studies of less well-known minor figures as Asrhan. Cismician, Duhsmel, Iilmon, and P:~yen, hut one must question how this afferts the "bslxnre" of the over-all picture presented. This reviewer wishes t.hat Farher hart included separate chapters on Berher and Stnhl, Gerhnrdt and Lxorent, Kolbe m d Frankland, Goldl~erg and bynnge, nod especially Avogndro, withnot wirosp law modern rhemistry is inmnreivnhle. Anyone who re:~ds extensively in this book will be impressed anew with the shallowness o i th? stereotype of the seient,ist with whirh the public has been presented. Despite certain recurring resemhlanres in lxxkgruunds and temperaments, enrh uf the scientists disrossed remains
above all an individual, wl.cthsr be be a man of extensive srientitir intprests surh as Ostwnld or s spcrinlist surh as Clm~de S. Hudson. The trend in seienre has unfortunntely been t o depersonalize the individual scientist. I n our use of the terms (;lauher's salt, ilaltnn's atomic theory, Gmelins Handbuch, Faraday's laws, Bunsen burner, Canniesaro reartinn, Mendeieev's table, van der Wads' equation, Salvity pmress, LeChatelier's principle, and the Stork system, ta menbion m l g a n obvious few, we remember the concept hut forget the originator; in fact, the proper name has almost been relegated t o t,he status of a n adjective. Biographies jndiriously introdured into our courses might help t o combat the impermnality whirh many students with artistic and creative tendencies find somewhat repelling about srienre.
I t is a rr,rnmmplare that many of rrlday's chemists lark a knowledge and appreriation of the history of t,heir seienre. This reviewer knows of nu easier or more pleasant way of remedying this deficienry than by rending Farber's fasrinating volume, a worthy English rival t o Bugge's German classic, "Dns Burh der Grossen Chemikrr." GEORGEB. KAUFFMAN Fresno Slate College Fresno, CaLiJornia Leben und Werk der Chemikers Tobias Lowitr: 1757-1 804
A . A. Piyzrrousbij, Academy of Sciences, USSR. Translated into German by E . Bibow, Institut fiir Geschiehte sn der Ikutsrhen Akademie der Wissensrhaften, East Berlin. Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 1959 xi 159 pp. 16 X 24 em. 19.50 DM.
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The name Tobias Lowiti: has pratticall.~ disappeared from the chemical literature and even the histories give little if any attention t o the life and work uf this interesting and produrtive German-Russa apatherary-chemist. I n fact, there have been on1.y two previous presentations uf his career (A. N. Scherer (18'20) and Paul Wnlden (1901)). Xeither of these was adequate and i t is therefore a pleasure t,o welcome the volume under review, which is based on a thorough reading and digestion of all t h a t has been written by and abrn~tLowits. His lifespan was only 47 years, he did not begin to publish until he was almost 30, su that the l i 9 papers (listed in the complete bibliography) appeared during approximately l i years. They dealt with all branrhes of chemistry. Some of the proredores he developed for the preparation of pharmareutical items are still in use, though he is seldom given credit for these advanres. He combined chemical theory ( s o far as i t existed) and practical application when he could. He made constant efforts to find ways of increasing the consumption of Russian raw materiak and of substituting domestic for foreign products. For example, he sought t o obtain sucrose from honey, and as R resnit found that i t owed its sweetness to another suhstanre (invert sugar) and he often served his fellow iteademieisns tea sweetened with his newly-discovered prnduct,. Only s selected few of his numerous discoveries and accomplishments can he noted here. His work on crystallization is outstanding. His wax models of mnnero m crystals are still on exhibition. He discovered isomorphism, n phenomenon later rediscovered by hlitscherlich to whom the credit is usually given. He was the first toprepare anhydrous ethyl alcohol and also ethyl ether. There are strong indications that he independently discovered strontium and ehrami~un. He distinguished between cr~atallisableand gluey or soaplike materials, thus antieipating Graham's rolioids and rrystdloids. These "firsts" demonstrate his standing as a gifted and industrious chemist. The reviewer is fully aware that this bingraphy was written by s. Soviet his(Continued on page ,4402)
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