Abstract
PROF. H. RUPE entered the private laboratory at Munich, as assistant to Baeyer, in 1891. At that date the great indigo problem had been solved, but the classical work on the reduction of the phthalic acids was still in full swing. These investigations, so well known in the abstract because of their bearing upon the constitution of benzene, take on at once a rich vesture of human interest to the reader of Prof. Rupe's delightful reminiscences of life in Baeyer's laboratory which have recently been published*. The work was beset with difficulties. At one time, for example, during the intensive search for dihydrophthalic acids, gigantic quantities of sodium amalgam, up to forty kilograms a week, were prepared and used in vain. The author remarks with feeling that the situation became very disagreeable to the assistants. It must have been, indeed, a “schwere, scheussliche und gefahrliche Arbeit”; but no labour was too tedious for the Master and his band of devoted helpers. There was, as Prof.Rupe says, something of the magnificent in this prolonged contest with matter.
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READ, J. Humour and Humanism in Baeyer's Laboratory. Nature 131, 294–295 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131294a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131294a0