The OSTWALD-VAN'T HOFF PHOTOGRAPH andOTHER MEMORIES of OSTWALD'S LABORATORY C. W. FOULK The Ohio State University, Columbus. Ohio
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H E TIME has come to claim credit for my most dent's present on the Christmas tree that season widely known chemical publication, the photo- was an exceptionally abbreviated pair of swimming graph of Ostwald and van't Hoff. It has been trunks together with the request that he wear them in reproduced in hooks and journals all over the world, the laboratory in order to be properly clad. It can well and when first made in 1900 H. W. Morse, who helped be imagined that the passing out of a long list of me take it, and I printed and sold several hundred such presents made an hour's fun. I n addition there copies. Morse really should have his name here as co- was music. One Christmas the Ostwald family conauthor of this paper, but I do not know where to 6nd stituted a small orchestra and a t another time the him. He is lost somewhere in the climate of Cali- Docenten, or young assistant professors, with some of fornia and does not answer my letters. the students got up an orchestra called the "Babies." The story of the photograph is as follows. As The instruments were toy trumpets, whistles, and the Christmas 1900 approached, the students in Ostwald's like. This orchestra was properly costumed, as Figure Physico-chemical Institute were told that van't Hoff 1 shows. was to be the guest speaker a t the annual WeihmchtsOstwald's real part in these festivities was to invite a f a t . This Christmas Festival deserves some special distinguished chemist as his guest, to speak t o the mention because i t was peculiar to the Ostwald Insti- students. I heard two of these guests. In 1899 Lantute. In one of the big laboratories a Christmas tree dolt, of Landolt and Bornstein, talked. He told us was set up, duly decorated, and hung with presents. about his experimental work on the conservation of These presents, with the exception of those for the mass during the course of a chemical reaction. I n 1900 children, were specially selected objects intended t o van't Hoff was the guest. His talk was semi-humorous call attention in a humorous way to some incident in and dealt with incidents of his student days and his the life of the early work on recipient or to steriochemi~tr~. some foible in I remember his b e h a v i o r that van't Hoff about the labhad a curious oratory. An habit in his use American stuof t h e hlackdent, for examboard. He did not turn to the ple, persisted in board when he laying off coat, vest, and collar wanted to write before beginning something on it work. This but, keeping his comfortable f a c e toward habit which att h e audience, tracts no attenwould feel betion a t home, hind for chalk was unusual in and t h e n feel a German labf o r t h e blackoratory. T h e board. When polite Germans, he touched i t F l c r r n ~ THE "BArn~s"ORCHES~RA however, said he would jerk In the front raw of these "Babies" beginning on the reader's left is R . Luther; nothing. The his hand away then come in order, Bodenstein, Karl Dmcker, C. A. Emst, and F. A. Lidbury. The American stua s if i t were man with the beard above Bodenstein is H. W. Morse.
great fignres in physical chemistly. Ostwald was t a l k i n g rapidly. They went directly to the apparatus with which Ostwald a t that time was studying the periodicity in the rate of solution of metallic chromium. It was an automatic arrangement for recording on a strip of paper the changes in the rate of evolution of hydrogen as solution proceeded. We had focused on this apparatus and, since the men were in a natural pose, the flashlight was a t once set off. (Amateur photographers should note that all of these photographs are flashlight exposures.) Plates were then hastily changed and another exuosure made. One of these photographs, Figure FIGURE2.-Ornw~m AND YAN'T HOFFIN OSTWALD'SPRIVATELABORATORY 3, has never before been reproduced. This is the photograph that has so frequently been reproduced. Ostwald himself called attention to the inartistic detail of the line of hot. Finally, having chalk in his hand and the board the doorframe through his nose. Ostwald also located he would hastily write what he wished and then made another interesting observation when he first saw the two prints. Pointing to van't H o p s exturn again quickly to the audience. Now, to the picture-taking. Even in that early day pression in Figure 2 he said, "Liebenmkrdigkeit" my propensity for photographing distinguished chem- (amiability) and to the quite different expression ists war well developed and I very much wanted to take in Figure 3, "Der Gelehrte" (the learned man). Then a picture of Ostwald and van't Hoff together. Neither he shook hands with Morse and me and the interview Morse nor I, however, had the courage to ask permission was over. There was of course a photograph of the Christfrom Professor Ostwald himself, so we approached the matter indirectly. Morse had a dozen or so eight by mas tree, too, Figure 4. Fortunately the crowd ten photographs of California scenery. These we in the foreground shows more than the tree. The mounted in a portfolio and presented to Frau Ostwald. ladies and children are with a few exceptions from Her gracious reception of this present emboldened us to faculty families. tell her how much we wished to photograph her husband and van't Hoff. She fell in with the idea a t once and told us to go right into her husband's private laboratory, set up the photographic apparatus, and that she would bring in the two professors. We did this when the evening arrived, but there was a long delay. Finally Frau Ostwald came over to the laboratory (the dwelling was a large house connected with the laboratory by a covered passage) and told us to have patience. She said, "Ma'n Man ist schon da; van't Hoff ist aber weggefiogen." "My husband is here but van't Hoff has flown away." What happened, we subsequently learned, was that van't Hoff had gone for a walk in order to think over his FIGURE 3:-A HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED PIIOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT THE SAME TIMEAS THE ONE IN FIGURE 2 forthcoming speech. At last they came, these two Note the different expression on van't Hoff's face.
AFTERNOON COFFEE
Another of the pleasant features of Ostwald's laboratory of that day was that best of all German customs, afternoon coffee. In this case there was also pfannkuchen, a sort of doughnut with jam on the inside. This refreshment was prepared under the direction of Frau Ostwald who was said to give the money from its sale to charity. The crowd usually collected on the stairway for this afternoon event. See Figure 6.
endowment of the society, was an elaborate affair, consisting of a dinner followed by amateur vaudeville acts. I remember being with Dr. Bodenstein in the banquet hall on the afternoon preceding the event. The tables were already in place and I noticed that one was on a slightly elevated platform. When asked the purpose of that, Dr. Bodenstein said, "Oh, that table is for the higher homologs." Ostwald, Beckman, Wislicenus, and others somewhat lower in the series sat there in the evening.
FIGURE 4 - 0 S T W n ~ o AND VAN'T Hoar ARE lLAs1l.v RECOGNIZED I N THISP r c r u n ~ The much bearded man second on Ostwald's right is Boltzman, then professor of theoretical physics at Leipzig. At van't Hoff's immediate right and a trifle lower is Bredig. In the shadows just above van't Hoff can be seen the retiring figureof G . N. Lewis. Bodenstein is in the lower leit of the picture with Professor Ikeda at his left. In the same row with Ostwald and at his left is Biittger. R. Luther is in the upper right corner with a long cigarette holder in his hand. Frau Ostwald is the third female figure from the right side of the picture. THE LEIPZIG CHEMICAL SOCIETY FESTIVAL
In 1901 the Stiftungsfest of the Leipzig Chemical Society was held. This was such a colotful affair and resulted in such interesting photographs that it is well worth a brief description. Dr. M a x Bodenstein, now head of the Department of Chemistry of the University of Berlin, hut then a young Docent in Ostwald's Institute, was one of the chief committeemen. I had the pleasure of working with him in producing the unusual photographs shown here. The Stiftungsfest, or celebration to commemorate the
I shall describe only one of the vaudeville events. It was the most pretentious and consisted in a scene from the lower regions. The stage setting is shown in Figure 5. It is the only photograph of the series which I did not take. When the curtain went up one saw the figures seated a t the table on the left. They represented old chemists, Dalton, Berzelius, etc. Satan was acting as waiter and serving them with drinks as ordered. Some of these drinks were very potent. Berzelius ordered a glass of liquid bromine and John Dalton one of concentrated nitric acid! The old chemists were in a pessimistic mood and deplored the decay
This combination was then rephotographed, the negative retouched and a lantern slide made. It was a complex process but readers will agree that i t resulted in a series of remarkable slides. I brought them all back to America with me but, alas, they, togetherwith all but a very few of my German negatives, were lost in the burning of the Chemical Laboratory a t The Ohio State University in 1904. Fortunately, however, two postcard pictures had been made by grouping and rephotographing positives printed from the lantern slide negatives. I have the two groups that were made in this way and it is one of them, containing the higher homologs, FIG, 5.-THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN AT THE CONCLUSION OP THE ACT. THE "YOUNG WOMAN" IS LIDRURV that is reproduced in Figure 7. The Julius Wagner slide (Figure 7) deserves s ~ e a amention. l Wacof chemistry on earth. Satan joined in the conversa- ner was a short ahd very fa; man. Among &e tion and told them that they were wrong. "There are Scotch students in the Institute was Fawcett, very better chemists on earth now than you fellows were," tall and thin. Fawcett posed for the body of Wagner. he said. "Take Ostwald, for example. He has written The final picture was a study in contrasts. Fawcett is more chemical books than you old chemists ever read." now a professor of chemistry in Australia. The old chemists doubted these statements, wherePages could be written of the events of my student upon Satan told them that he would show them the days in Leipzig, during those two years from 1899 t o state of affairs on earth in his magic mirror. This 1901, but time and space do not permit. I n 1932 I maeic mirror was a screen on which pictures from a concealed lantern were thrown. Satan waved his wand and showed Ostwald as in E, Figure 7. This was followed by others. Beckman ( A ) and Wislicenus (B) are especially t o be noted. The figure carrying the sack on his back (D) was the Treasurer of the Society, a factory i': ,". owner in Leipzig. One can see 2 from the card he carries that the dues were two marks. The one holding the pipet and watch was Julius Wagner (C), who instructed in analvtical chemistrv. There were four more of these "magic pictures" b u t t h e y w e r e of younger men who a t that time were not yet among the "higher homologs." These caricatures were made as follows. Dr. Bodenstein posed for all of them excepting the one for Wagner. Figure 8 shows him in the Ostwald pose. A photograph was then made. the Bodenstein head cut off a n d an Ostwald head FIGUREO-IN THISPICTURE, G. N. LEWIS,AT. READER'SLERT,AND LIDBURY from a photograph purARB RECOGNIZED B Y THEIRPIPESAND S~MILAR CUP AND SAUCER TECHNIC. THE chased in the city put in its place. TALLMANIN THE WHITECOATAT THE TURNOP THE BANISTERIS FAWCETT
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revisited the old haunts for the first time. The Institute Building, Figure 9, looked familiar from the outside. Inside it was diierent. Everything was old and stained and crowded. Work desks had even been placed in the corridors. Of the former group only W. Bottger, now professor of analytical chemistry, was in Leipzig. His hospitality during the brief stay that my wife and I made will always be a pleasant memory. Wolfgang Ostwald and Karl Drucker were out of town, so I missed them both.
PIGLXE9.-OSTWALD'SPHYSICO-CHEMICAL INSTITUTEAS IT WAS IN 1899 AND A S IT IS AT PRESENT. PROM ON THE INSIDEMANYCHANGES HAVEBEENMADE
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