Abstract
The award of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for 1947 to Sir Robert Robinson, president of the Royal Society, can have occasioned little surprise in view of his outstanding contributions to organic chemistry. They cover so wide a field that it is only possible to refer to a few of the more important of these. His early work on brazilin and hæmatoxylin, carried out in collaboration with the late Prof. W. H. Perkin, led to new pyrylium salt syntheses, which were later extended and applied to the artificial preparation of the anthocyanins, the chief red and blue pigments of flowers and blossoms, thus providing a final proof of the structures assigned to some of them by Willstätter. The possession of the pure synthetic specimens made it possible to devise simple quick tests for the anthocyanins contained in a few petals, which have proved to be of great value in genetic investigations. Of equal brilliance are his investigations in the alkaloid field. His simple synthesis of tropinone was rather the outcome than the cause of a theory of biogenesis of plant products put forward in 1917. This theory collated for the first time the apparently dissimilar alkaloidal constituents, and it has proved useful both in prediction and in criticism. The structures put forward for morphine and thebaine have found general acceptance. Undoubtedly his greatest contribution in this field has been his extended study of the chemistry of strychnine and brucine.
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Nobel Prizes for 1947: Sir Robert Robinson, R.R.S. Nature 160, 703 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/160703b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/160703b0