H.S. VAN KLOOSTER Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
F x w people know th,at Liebig's Annalen der Chemie which have been in continuous existence since 1832 were originally designated as A n n a l a der P h a m z i e . This is not so strange as it may appear a t first sight. Practical chemistry had its origin in the mines (assaying) and in the drug store (pharmacy), and its emergence as a separate science was gradual. There was, to be sore, in Liebig's youth, a periodical which was, in a small may, a forerunner of Ostwald and van't Hoff's Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie, started in 1887. This was Gilbert's Annalen der Physik und physikalischen Chemie (the successor of Gilbert's Annalen der Physik (1799-1819)), which became Poggendofi's Annalen der Physik und Chemie in 1824 and later, from 1877 to 1899 Wiedemann's Annalen der Physilc und Chemie until finally it. emerged as A n n a l a der Physilc, under Drude as editor. Liebig who had started on his first job as a druggist's apprentice in Heppenheim, near his home town of Darmstadt, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, had no qualms of conscience in publishing the results of his work and that of his friends and pupils in a periodical with an established clientele of subscribers. As a matter of fact the Annala der P h a m z i e started out as a combination of two pharmaceutical periodicals, vie., the Magazin fur Pharmazie und Experimentalkritik (Vol. 37, 1832) and the Archiv des Apothekervereins im nordlichen Deutschland (Vol. 40, 1832). The title of the combined publications, via., Annalen der P h a m z i e was given on the left side of the front page, while on the right the original journals were mentioned separately with their respective editors. The Annala appeared monthly, three numbers forming one volume. The custom of publishing four volumes a year persisted until 1873. I n 1861, 1863, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1870, and 1872 supplementary volumes, distinguished by Roman numerals I to VIII, were issued. Beginning with 1873, the number of volumes per year varied, all the way from one (in 1916) to nine (in 1929). The publishing was, a t first, done in two places, in Lemgo (near Bielefeld) and in Heidelberg, but later, starting with Volume 11, for a long time exclusively in Heidelberg. Liebig's connection with the Annalen began as follows. His colleague Philipp Lorenz Geiger. (17851836), a pharmacist, since 1824 professor of pharmacy at Heidelberg and editor of the Magmin fur Phamnazie und die dahin einschlagenden Wissenschoften, was anxious to be relieved of the daily management of his journal and asked Liebig to join him as co-editor. Liebig who had t o support a wife and three children on only 800 florins a year accepted this new position reluctmtly. On March 8, 1831, he wrote to Berzelius: I have, recently, been hurdened with a heavy load, by joining
VOLUME 34, NO. 1, JANUARY, 1957
Geiger as ca-editor of his journal, all for the sake of the damned money involved. At the small univemity where I live, I am almost on the verge of stmvation.
Once embarked on this literary activity Liebig went a t it with his usual energy. The 6nal three volumes of 1831 (34, 35, and 36) carry the new title Magazin fur Pharmazie i n Verbindung mit einer Experimentalkritik, t o express Liehig's intention to criticize the material published in the journal and to check, in so far as possible, the recorded data by new experiments. The following year (1832) a second pharmaceutical journal was merged with Geiger's journal. This was the Archiv des Apothekervereins im n$rdlichen Deutschland, mentioned before, edited by Rudolph Brandes (1795-1842), pharmacist a t Saleuffeln (Westphalia) and "Oberdirector" of the pharmacists of northern Germany. Liebig considered it the main duty of an editor t o criticize, and his drastic innovations soon met with disapproval on the part of Brandes who withdrew from the management of the combined periodicals in 1836 and thereupon re-established his own journal under the shorter title of Archiv der Pharmazie. For a brief period (183436, Volumes 11 to 17) there were four editors. This was the result of the merger of a third journal vie., the N e w s Journal der Pharmazie fur Arzte, Apotheker und Chemiker with the other two. The editor of this third periodical was Johann Bartholoma Trommsdorff (1770-1837). Trommsdorff, like Geiger and Brandes, was a pharmacist and for many years professor of chemistry and physics, and director of the Royal Academy of Useful Sciences a t Erfurt. Geiger died in 1836 and Trommsdofi in 1837. The former was succeeded as editor by Emanuel Merck (1794-1855), pharmacist a t Darmstadt and founder of the well-known pharmaceutical concern. Trommsd o s was replaced by Friedrich Mohr (1816-79), pharmacist a t Coblentz and later professor of pharmacy a t Bonn. Mohr had been a frequent contributor to the Annalen and was held in high esteem by Liebig. Having been invited to attend the Liverpool meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Liebig, in the summer of 1837, undertook a trip to England, Scotland, and Ireland and thus got acquainted with the elderly Thomas Thomson (17731852) and his pupil Thomas Graham (1805-69). The latter, Liebig judged to be a modest and unpretentious chemist of great accomplishments. On his return t o Germany Liebig stopped over in Paris where he settled his controversies with Dumas and converted him to his own viewpoint so completely that a cooperative program for common action was agreed upon. Back in Giessen, Liebig expressed his dissatisfaction with the way Mohr had managed the affairs of the Annalen in his absence. Both co-editors resigned, presumably a t Liebig's request. This left Liehig in complete control of the Annalen which were then, starting
with Volume 25 (1838), edited "with the cooperation of Messrs. Dumas in Paris and Graham in London." In a four-page announcement of the new arrangement Liehig stated that the journal, in order t o become truly international, was to be issued simultaneously in England, France, and Germany. He also indicated his intention to devote the Annalen chiefly to the new, vie., the organic chemistry, without however neglecting discoveries in related fields of research. What WWler thought of this new arrangement v e learn from a letter which he wrote to Berzelius on July 28 (1838): I was greatly annoyed to see that Liebig since the beginning of this yew published his Annalen with the oo-operation of Dumas m d Graham. Although I know for sure that this title is merely a trick in favor of the publisher and the sale of the journal, this alliance seems to me not only ridiculous, hut fatal, because apart from everything else, it ignores shamefully d l nationality and i t humiliates us in the eyes of these Frenchmen. I told Liebig what I thought of it and in order to re-establish t o some extent a kind of equilibrium, and also to show that he is not going to change hi8 scientific partners every minute, I proposed to have my name also placed on the title page. Of course, I promised him not only my name like the other two, but also my real cooperation, and this, naturally, without any remuneration.
This suggestion was readily accepted by Liebig and starting with Volume 26 (1838) the Annalen were published under joint editorship of Friedrich Wohler and Justus Liebig. As one of his first contributions, Wohler, who had quite a sense of humor, sent in an unsigned article under the title: "The solved mystery of spirituous fermentation."' This persiflage of the microscopic observations of Cagniard-Latour (17771859) and Schwann (1810-82) pleased Liehig so well that he added a few more bad jokes (schlechte Spasze) of his own and published this combined concoction in Volume29,lOO (1839). Much to Wohler's surprise the sketch was taken seriously by a reviewer in the Pharmaceutisches Centralblatt of 1839. Wohler also made another, very sensible, suggestion to Liebig which is contained in a letter, dated October 18 (1838), in which he says: For the Annalen der Pharmazie you must, in future, introduce the title 'ilnnalen der Chemie und Pharmazie." The present title does not a t all cover, for instance, our uric acid investigation. The publisher will certainly not object and the number of subscribers will only increase thereby. Bunsen in Cassel does not know the Annalen a t all, because he figures that they deal only with pharmacy.
This suggestion was acted upon with Volume 33 (1840), and the new title was retained up to the time of Liebig's death in 1873. Volume 33 is particularly noteworthy for another humorous contribution of Wohler entitled: "On the substitution law and the theory of types" (pp. 308-lo), written under the pseudonym of S. C. H. W i ~ d l e r . ~Wohler was quite surprised to find that Liebig actually published the letter as written. In a letter t o Liebig, dated Osnabriick, March 29 (1840), he stated that the letter was really meant for the amusement of Berzelius. If he had known that it was to be published he would have signed the letter (which was written in French) Professor Ch. Arlatan. For a literal trannlation of the original see J. CHEM.EDUC.10, 543 (1933). 2 For a literal translation of the original see J. &EM. Eouc. 7, 635 (1930).
The same volume (33) contains a long article by Liebig (pp. 97-136) on "Chemistry in Prussia," in which he makes the bold statement: "There are no rhemical laboratories in Prussia." For readers of today, it should be recalled, in this connection, that Gottingen where Wohler taught for over forty years, is located in Hanover which was an independent kingdom until 1866, when it was annexed by Pmssia. Beginning with the final volume of 1839 Liebig included in the Annalen a progress report on the advances in chemistry of that year (Jahresherirht iiber die Fortschritte der Chemie in 1839). This first report was prepared by his colleague Buff. I n succeeding years various authors, including Will and Kopp, cooperated in this work. The practice was discontinued in 1855 in order to save space for original contributions. I n 1842, beginning with Volume 41, the names of Dumas and G~,ahamwere omitted from the title page. The custom of printing articles by French authors in translation, frequently as abstracts, continued till the end of Liebig's editorship. Liebig who had been a pupil of Gay Lussac (who later sent his own son Jules to Giessen to study with Liehig) knew all the leading French chemists personally and was anxious to bring their work to the attention of his countrymen. He was so well known in France that on one occasion during his last visit to Paris, as an officialdelegate of Bavaria to the Paris MTorld'sFair of 1867, he was the only dinner guest of the emperor and was interrogated in German for over an hour on such subjects as meat extracts, agriculture, and sewage disposal. With Liebig's death in 1873, following the war of 1870-71 and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany, many changes in the editorial policies of the Annalen were in evidence. I n 1851, a year before he left Giessen, Liebig had invited his colleague Hermann Kopp (1817-92), the well-known historian of chemistry, who had helped him with the yearly progress reports for several years, to take over the management. of the Annalen. Kopp's name as editor appeared for the first time on the title page of Volume 77 and was kept there until Volume 269 (in 1892). Volume 170, the first one issued after Liebig's death, mentions Emil Erlenmeyer (1825-1909) and Jacob Volhard (1834-1910) as junior editors. The title was changed to Justus Liebig's Annalen der Chemie und Phamazie. Two new editors, August Wilhelm Hofmann (1818-92) and Friedrich August Kekul6 (182996), were added to the editorial board in 1874. Beginning with Volume 173, the journal became Justus Liebig's Annalen der Chemie, under which title it is still known today. Volhard, who had obtained his Ph.D. in Marburg, had been Liehig's assistant for a while in Munich, had moved from there to London, then back to Marburg and finally hack to Munich in 1863, where he died in 1910. He and Erlenmeyer, who was a pupil of Liebig and from 1868 t o his retirement in 1880 professor of organic chemistry at the Technische Hochschule in Munich, took over the office work connected with the Annalen in 1871 at Liebig's request. From 1878 on, it was Volhard alone who was in charge of the Annalen with the other editors acting as editorial advisers and contributors. It was Volhard's policy to take only finished reJOURNAL O F CHEMICAL EDUCATION
search papers from the whole field of chemistry and to exclude articles of a polemical nature. The development of science and industry in Germany in the forty years following Liebig's dehh, was astonishing. In addition to Gottingen and Heidelberg a number of prominent centers of chemical research had developed (e.g., in Munich under the leadership cf Baeyer). A great many foreigners were trained who, in later years, sent their contributions from their home countries t o t,he Annalen. Volhard insisted on good, grammatically correct German and spent much of his time correcting manuscripts. Only original contributions, that had not appeared in print elsewhere, were taken. Occasional exceptions were made for articles previously published in Russia or Italy. Among the Russians who published their work in the Annalen we find MendeKeff, Menschutkin, Butlerow, Zinin, Beilstein, Markownikov, Borodin, and SabanBeff. Noted English contributors were Stenhouse, Thorpe, Cmm Brown, and Roscoe. Americans who published their work regularly in the Annalen were Nef, Freer, Gomberg, and Mallet. Occasional contributions were also sent from Geneva (where Graebe taught from 1878 to 1906), Basel and Ziirich in Switzerland, from Pisa and Florence in Italy, from Delft in Holland, from Graz in Austria, from Helsingfors (now Helsinki) in Finland, and from other countries in western Europe. Wohler's name disappeared from the list of editors with Volume 215 (1882) and the names of Kopp and Hofmann, who both died in 1892, with Volume 270. In 1896 KekuM died and his place on the board of editors was filled by Rudolf Fittig (1835-1910), a pupil of Wohler. The next year (Vol. 297) two famous organic chemists joined the board of editors, viz., Otto Wallach (1847-1931) and Adolf Baeyer (1835-1917), both regular contributors to the Annulen. Wallach, who had obtained his Ph.D. under Wohler in 1869, had started his life work on terpenes and camphors in Bonn in 1884 when he was an assistant of Kekul6 and continued in Gottingen where he succeeded Victor Meyer in 1889. He went on with his research until 1924 when his 129th paper appeared in the Annalen. The writer, who attended Wallach's lectures on elementary organic chemistry in the spring of 1909, was present when his advanced students celebrated the publication of Wallach's 100th paper on ethereal oils. Wallach was not only a great chemist, he was also an accomplished. lecturer who always illustrated his lectures, without the aid of a single assistant, with a few simple but meU-chosen experiments. The writer remembers vividly the roaring applause that followed when Wallach separated the alcohol in beer by boiling the beer in a flask provided with a meter-long tube and igniting the alcohol with a burning match as it issued from the tube. Wallach received the Nobel prize in 1910, five years after it had been awarded t o Baeyer. In 1903, on the occasion of the centenary i f the birth of Liebig, Volhard added a forty-page commemorative article with a picture of Liebig to Volume 328 of the Annalen. In 1907, Emil Fischer who had received the second Nobel prize in chemistry, joined the board of editors. Volhard, who died in 1910, mas succeeded by Johannes Thiele (1855-1918) as managing editor. In 1909 Erlenmeyer died and in the next year Fittig. VOLUME 34, NO. 1, JANUARY, 1957
Their places on the board of editors were filled in 1911, beginning with Volume 379, by Carl Graebe (18411927) and Theodor Zincke (1843-1928), both frequent contributors to the Annalen. Graebe, best known for the synthesis of alizarin which he carried out in cooperation with Liebermann, had just retired from his professorship a t Geneva. Zincke, the son of a druggist and a former pupil of Wohler, had done his best work in organic chemistry a t Marburg where he had been professor since 1875. Although close t o retirement in 1911, he continued his publications in the Annalen until he was well over eighty, with more than 300 articles in the Annalen and the Berichte to his credit. The first world war (1914-18), had a pronounced effect on the puhlication of scientific papers. From a high-water mark of 9 volumes in 1912, the number went down to 7 in 1913,5in 1914,4 in 1915, and to only 1 in 1916. I n the ncxt ten years the numbers were 2, 4,2,2,4,4,6,5,5, and 9. Due to the paper shortage in the postwar years, a poor grade of paper had to be used in several volumes. Baeyer died in 1917 and Thiele the next year. Their places were filled by Richard Willstatter (1872-1942) and Wilhelm Wislicenus (18611922). The latter, at that time professor in Tiibingen, took over the duties of managing editor in the fall of 1918. On the death of Emil Fischer in 1919 no one took his place on the editorial staff. I n 1922 Wislicenus died, whereupon his place was filled by Heinrich Wieland (1877- ), a pupil of Thiele and successor of Willstatter a t the university of Munich on the latter's retirement in 1925. Graebe and Zincke passed away in 1927 and 1928 and were replaced by Adolf Windaus (1876 ), Wallach's successor in Gottingen since 1915, and Hans Fischer (1881-1945), Wieland's successor a t the Technische Hochschule in Munich since 1921. Windaus, Wieland, and Fischer all received the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1928, 1927, and 1930, respectively, and formed with Willstatter, the 1915 Nobel prize winner, and Wallach the most distinguished group of editors that ever presided over the destinies of a scientific journal. Of these five men, Wallach died in 1931 and Willstatter went to Switzerland in 1938 so that a t the outbreak of the second world war only Wieland, Windaus, and Fischer were left on the editorial board. During the period from 1923 to 1939 the main burden of editing the Annalen fell on Wieland. He succeeded in maintaining the high standing of the journal in the field of organic chemistry which occupied probably more than 90% of the contents of the Annalen. Only a few inorganic papers occasionally appeared. Cont,ributions from neutral and from former enemy count.ries and also from the successor states of the dual mont~rchgof Austria-Hungary found their way into the Annalen. At the outbreak of the second world war (193945) Wieland took complete charge of the Annalen and continued to publish articles emanating from countries under German domination. One short paper in Volume 556 (1944) was sent in by an Asiatic chemist from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris (!). Very few copies of the Annalen reached America during the war years. For the benefit of American libraries and research workers the office of the Alien Property Custodian authorized Edwards Brothers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to make
photostatic reproductions of these war issues and to distribute them in this country. The number of volumes published in the war years dropped to one (No. 556) in 1944. The next year only number one of Volume 557, published in Berlin, appeared; the second and third number did not get published until May 1 and May 15 of 1947 and were printed on poor, yellow, postwar paper. From then on the Annalm were published in Weinheim (north of Heidelberg) in issues of 3500 copies a t first, under the editorship of Windaus, Wieland, and Richard Kuhn (1900- ) who had won the Nobel prize in 1938. Thanks to the financial and technical help extended to the countries of western Europe by the United States, rapid progress has been made in the field of chemistry, and a t present the Annalen are back a t their prewar average of five to six volumes a year, the latest
volume published being 595. The contents of the Annah are now exclusively organic. Due to the revival of nationalism throughout the world, a number of new chemical periodicals have appeared, and so far no communications by nou-Germans have been published in the Annalen since 1945. Of the four men who edited the Annah prior to the war, Willstatter went in exile in 1938 and died in Switzerland in 1942; Hans Fiacher, like Goebbels, Gohring, and Hitler, committed suicide when the Third Reich collapsed; Windaus and Wieland are no longer active because of age and sickness. The equivocal role of the present managing editor, Kuhn, in the war years has been well told by Dr. Goudsmit of Brookhaven Laboratories in his report on the work of the Alsos mission in 1944 and 1945.' 3 GOUDSMIT, S.A,, "Alsos," Henry Sehuman, Inc., New York, 1947, pp. 8W83.
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