Das optische Drehungsvermögen organischer Substanzen und dessen praktische Anwendung

Abstract

THE first edition of this book, which appeared nineteen years ago, has since its publication been the standard work on the rotation of the plane of polarised light by active substances. Since 1879, however, the number of active substances known has increased from 300 to over 700, the methods of determining the rotation have been much improved, and considerable advances have been made in the theory of the asymmetric carbon atom, to mention only a few of the directions in which progress has been made. All this necessitated a thorough revision of the “Drehungsvermögen”; and in order to cope, in reasonable time, with the mass of material, the author has called in the assistance of the specialists above named in writing several of the chapters. The writers must be congratulated on the way in which they have welded the different chapters into a homogeneous whole, the disjointedness which so often arises from such joint-authorship having been most happily avoided. Comparing the present edition with the former one, the progressive broadening and consolidation of our knowledge of optical activity is very apparent. Twenty years ago the main outlines of the subject were already sketched in, and these remain practically unchanged; how much has been done in the interval, in filling in details, can best be appreciated by reading the present work.

Das optische Drehungsvermögen organischer Substanzen und dessen praktische Anwendung.

By H. Landolt, assisted by Drs. O. Schönrock, P. Lindner, F. Schütt, L. Berndt and T. Posner. Second Edition. Pp. xxii + 655. (Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn, 1898.)