476 CHEMICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION 



Professor Curie was killed in a street accident in Paris in 1906. 

 Madame Curie is now Professor of Physics in the Sorbonne. 



PROFESSOR EMIL FISCHER is Ordinary Professor of Chemistry in 

 the University of Berlin, and Director of the Laboratories in the 

 Chemical Institute. He was appointed to this Chair on the death 

 of Hofmann in 1892. Hofmann was the first Professor in the Royal 

 College of Chemistry London, from its foundation in 1845 till his 

 return to his own country in 1865. 



Professor Fischer was born at Eus Kirchen (Rhenish Prussia) in 

 1852. He began his scientific studies in Strasburg. 



After working for some years under von Baeyer in Munich, latterly 

 as Extraordinary Professor in the analytical department of the 

 University, he was appointed Ordinary Professor of Chemistry at 

 Erlangen (1882). 



Three years later he occupied the chair at Wurzburg till the call 

 came which took him to Berlin. He has, of course, received all the 

 distinctions which are in Germany naturally associated with the 

 position he occupies in the premier university Geheim-rat, 

 Regierungs-rat to which has been added the title " Excellenz." 

 He became a member of the Munich Academy of Sciences in 1881, 

 and of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1893. He has 

 also received from the Royal Society the Davy Medal, and from the 

 Chemical Society the Faraday Medal on the occasion of his deliver- 

 ing the Faraday Lecture in 1907. 



Fischer's researches may be grouped under four principal heads. 

 First, in 1878, in conjunction with Otto Fischer, he established the 

 nature of the rosaniline dyes as derivatives of triphenylmethane. 

 Having then discovered phenyl hydrazine he applied this substance 

 as a reagent in his masterly study of the sugars a few years later. 

 Next the synthesis of uric acid and a number of closely allied com- 

 pounds cleared up the confusion previously existing in this impor- 

 tant group of substances. During nearly twenty years Fischer has 

 been occupied with the study of the protein constituents of animal 

 and vegetable tissues, on which he has thrown a flood of light by his 

 synthesis of a number of complex amino-acids, some of which are 

 described in the text. 



DMITRI IVANOVITSCH MENDELEEFF was the fourteenth and 

 youngest child of his parents. The elder Mendeleeff was Director of 

 the College at Tobolsk (Siberia), and here was born 27th January, 

 1834 (O.S.), the son who was to become so famous. The full story 

 of his life and work has been told in the Memorial Lecture given to 

 the Chemical Society by Sir William Tilden on 21st October, 1909, 

 and printed in the Transactions of the Society for that year. 



