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NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS DESCENDED FROM
A Table of Academic Genealogy RUDOLF SACHTLEBEN Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany (Translated a n d Annotated by Ralph E. Oesper, University of Cincinnati)
LIEBIG'S closest friend and eminent collaborator, Friedrich Wohler, once wrote: "Like that enchanted island with the lodestone rock, which attracted all ships from afar and held them fast, Giessen acted on all chemists." The "magic isle Giessen" was the unique school which Liebig, barely 21, had set up to train chemists, where he could be to all of his students what Gay-Lussac had been to him individually during his stay in Paris.' Into this laboratory he poured all of his material and mental resources. The young men who studied there took away far more than could be put on paper; they learned from and a t the side of a great research artist how chemical investigation~ought to be conducted. There had been teaching laboratories before Liebig, but his pedagogical approach in chemistry was new. Students from many countries came to him during the period 1825-52. He began with two students, but the laboratory was soon overflowing and had to be extended. In time, the beginners were supervised by his assistants and had to vroaress through a series of laboSee J. CHEM. EDUC., 4, 1461 (1927).
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ratory exercises. The use of the balance and the usual apparatus had to be learned in order that unknowns could be analyzed. "Acquaintance with the composition of the compounds enables the chemist to solve chemical problems, which were held to be insolvable only a few years ago," declared Liebig. Largely due to his school, organic chemistry became a giant among the branches of chemistry. "When it becomes possible to find a bright spot in the murky area of organic Nature, which seems to us like one of the portals through which we perhaps can hit upon the true path for understanding and studying this region, we always feel that we have reason to congratulate ourselves," wrote Liebig and Wohler. In discussing his advanced special students, Liebig tells in his autobiographical notes,2 "Like the radii of a circle, they all had their common center. There was no manual of directions in the usual sense. Each morning I heard from each what he had done the day before, and his views about what he intended to do. Published at Giessen, 1926; see also GEORGEYON LIEBIG, Ber., 23, Ref. 817 (1890).
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
I agreed or stated my objections; each was required to map out his o m path. By living together, and from the constant traffic with each other . . . each learned from the other. We worked from the start of the day until night fell. In Giessen there were no distractions and recreations. . . . The memories of their stay in Giessen awaken, so I still hear, among most of my students a pleasant feeling of satisfaction of a time well spent." Sir William Ramsay in writing of his training in the laboratory of William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) gives a later example of a great teacher who likewise made his students actual collaborators. We had little systematic teaching, but were a t once launched into the knowledge that there is an unknown region where mueh is to be discovered; and we were made to feel that we might help to fathom its depths. Although this method is not without its disadvantages, for systematic instruction is of much v a l u e there is mueh to be said for it. On the one hand, too long a course of experimenting on old and well-known lines.. .is likely to imbue the young student with the idea that all physics consists of learning to use apparatus and in repeating measurements which have already been made. On the other hand, too early attempts t o investigate the unknown are likely to prove fruitless for want of manipulative skill and also far want of knowledge of what has already been done. The best of all possible training, however, is to serve as hands for a fertile brain-the brain of one who knows what he wishes to discover, who is familiar with all that has been attempted, and who gradually trains the assistant to take part in the thinking as well as in the manipulation. If a t the same time the student is made to read not merely concerning the problem on which he is immediately engaged but on all branches of his subject, nothing can be better than such stimulating intercourse with an inventive teacher for those who have the ability to profit by it.8
This may be described as the policy behind Ramsay's own system of teaching. To emphasize the effect of Liebig's "enchanted island" on the succeeding academic generations, an effect that is continuing still, the Deutsches Museum in Munich has worked up a family tree of scientists descended from the Liebig school, and it is exhibited in the "Liehig L a b ~ r a t o r y . " ~The branches of the tree lead via intermediate limbs to many Nobel Prize winners. Liebig and some of his scholastic descendants represent the roots of the tree. A copy of this genealogical exhibit is shown here. One mighty branch proceeds from August KekulB (1829-96). He came to Giessen in 1847 as stwliosus architecturae, attended Liebig's lectures, and was so fascinated that he decided to change his course. (It has been suggested that his architectural leanings were reflected in his hexagonal representation of benzene, which indeed has something of the drawing hoard atmosphere.) To him, Liebig gave the warning, "If you wish to become a chemist, be prepared to ruin your health; whoever does not ruin his health by studying will amount to nothing in chemistry these days." NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS
The first Nobel award was made in 1901; the recipient was J. H. van't Hoff, who had doubtless been deeply influenced in the development of his mature work by his contact with KekulB's ideas a t Bonn where he went several semesters. Another of KekulB's TRAVERS,MORRISW. "A Life of Sir William Ramsay," Arnold, London, 1956, p. 10. S e e J . CHEM.EDUC., 34, 283 (1957).
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students was Adolf von Baeyer, who received the award in 1905. He in turn has thus far had no less than 16 Nobel Prize men among his chemical and biochemical descendants. Among them are Willstatter, his successor a t Munich, who received the award in 1915, and his own student, Richard Kuhn (1938). Others are Ehrlich (1908), Landsteiner (1930), and Muller (1948) who were honored for their work in chemotherapy, blood groups, and contact poisons (DDT), respectively. Wieland (1927) and Buchner (1907) received the award for work that was primarily biochemical. The great Emil Fischer (1902), likewise a Baeyer son, though he did outstanding work in pure chemistry was the first to be honored for biochemical accomplishments with his studies on sugars and proteins. His branch of the Nobel tree includes Windaus (1928), Warburg (1931), Diels and Alder (1950) who were teacher and student, and also the biochemists Krebs and Lipmann who shared the prize in 1953. Hans Fischer (1930) who unraveled the blood pigment chemistry and, surprisingly, Otto Hahn (1944) whose work on nuclear fission is the basis of the application of atomic energy, were in the Keknl6 line. Among the numerous physical chemists, many issue from Wilhelm Ostwald (1909) who as a Balt had studied under Liebig's student Carl Schmidt. This line includes: Arrhenius (1903) of electrolytic dissociation fame, T. W. Richards (1914), the first Arnerican chemist to he honored in this way, the gifted thermodynamicist Nernst (1920), his student I. Langmuir (1932), and W. Giauque (1949) and G. Seaborg (1951) who, like their teacher G. N. Lewis, made California famous as a scientific center. Cthers on this branch are the biochemist von Euler (1929), and F. Bergius, renowned for his hydrogenation of coal. Liebig's biographer, Jakob V ~ l h a r dwas , ~ the teacher of D. Vorlauder, who was the academic forefather of three Nobel laureates, namely Staudinger (1953), the great man in macromolecular chemistry which is the foundation of plastics and modern synthetic materials in this category, and his students, the great organic investigators Ruzicka (1939) and his student Reichstein (1951). The latter two were honored prior to their ancester. I n all, the list to date numbers 34 Nobel Prize men who are lineal academic descendants of Liebig. It is interesting to review the history of chemistry and to speculate who might have been chosen if the Nobel awards had been started say in 1850. I n that event, the number of L:ehig descendants would certainly have been much greater, a fact that merely emphasizes once more the length of the shadow of this pre-eminent chemist and teacher. One is tempted to quote Portia's statement, "How far that little candle throws his beams," but to those who know the brilliance of Liebig's torch the comparison would be ludicrous. Far better to quote scripture: "By their fruits ye shall know them."e VOLHARD, J., "Ju~tu8van Liebig," two vols., Leipzig, 1909. For short biographies of the Nobel laureates, together with brief statements of their prize-winning work and ite significance, see the three volumes published by Henry Schumann, New York, 1953: "Nobel Priae Winners in Chemistry (1901-1950)" by EDUARD F A R B ~"Nobel ; Priae Winners in Physics (1901-1950)" by N. H. de V. HEATHCOTE;"Nobel Priae Winners in Medicine and Physiology (1901-1950)" by L. G. STEVENSON.
