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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIX. No 487 



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 rork. 



AUGUST WILHELM VON HOFMANN. 



On May 6, 1892, the New York papers annouuced the 

 death of this great chemist, in a brief despatch from Berlin; 

 and the comments upon his life and works took an equally brief 

 form. Yet there was probably no German professor whose 

 name was dear to so many American pupils, no foreigner 

 who viewed American science so sympathetically, no con- 

 temporary who had left so deep an impress upon one of the 

 cardinal branches of human knowledge and industry. Chemi- 

 cal journals will bring to every laboratory eloquent tributes 

 to the memory of the deceased master; but I am glad that 

 this paper, which appeals to the general scientiSc public of 

 the United States, opens its columns to a testimonial, how- 

 ever trifling and inadequate, from one of the departed mas- 

 ter's pupils. 



August Wilhelm Hofmann was born April 8, 1818, in 

 the Hessian town of Giessen, in which his father lived as an 

 architect. Giessen was an obscure town, harboring the 

 equally insignificant University of the Grand Duchy of 

 Hesse-Darmstadt. But six years after the birth of Hofmann 

 an event occurred which was to have a curiously analogous 

 effect upon his own career and that of his native town, the 

 installation of Justus Liebig in the chair of chemistry. From 

 a torpid mediseval village, Giessen became a centre of intel- 

 lectual activity; its university achieved imperishable renown 

 as the first to establish a laboratory devoted primarily to 

 instruction. Equally beneficent was Liebig's influence upon 

 young Hofmann: after devoting his attention successively 

 to philology and to law, the example of Liebig drew him 

 irresistibly toward chemistry, and he became one of his most 

 enthusiastic and successful pupils. His first connection with 

 Liebig was of a personal nature, since the erection of the 

 University Laboratory, which was entrusted to the elder 

 Hofmann, brought the two families into intimate relations. 

 Later he married a niece of Liebig's wife. 



His first apprenticeship as teacher, after the formal comple- 



tion of his studies, was likewise passed under Liebig's eye; 

 but in 18i5 he established himself as privat docent in Bonn, 

 although he was not destined to remain there long. Late 

 in the same year he accepted an invitation to become the 

 head of the Eoyal College of Chemistry, then newly estab- 

 lished in London by Prince Albert, the Consort of the Queen. 

 This institution was avowedly intended to be a reproduction, 

 on British soil, of the Giessen Laboratory, and the choice of 

 its director could not have been a happier one. The English 

 pupils found in their teacher not the traditional German 

 pedagogue, narrow, pedantic and awkward, visionary aiid 

 incapable of adapting himself to his surroundings; but a 

 brilliant lecturer, an energetic executive officer, a polite gen- 

 tleman, a kind and encouraging teacher, and a sympathetic 

 friend. During the seventeen years of his life in London he 

 seemed to have completely assimilated himself to his sur- 

 roundings, and the English world of science, ordinarily so 

 nativistic, seems to have admitted him unreservedly within 

 its fold. In fact, there was nothing upon which his energy 

 and sagacity might be brought to bear, with which he 

 was not entrusted. If there was a question to be solved 

 in the manufactures, if the Treasury wanted advice in excise 

 matters, if a competent judge were needed in international 

 exhibitions of science and arts, if learned societies were in 

 search of a representative head, recourse was always had to 

 Hofmann. In fact, he received what was for many years 

 the highest scientific reward in the bestowal of the Crown, 

 the Mastership of the Mint. In England his greatest and 

 most lasting work was doubtless accomplished. It was there 

 that he and his pupils first investigated the organic com- 

 pounds of phosphorus, the complicated ammonia bases, the 

 cyanides, the isonitrils, and the mustard oils. In his labora- 

 tory the aniline dyes and the azo-dyes were discovered by 

 himself and his pupils Perkin and Peter Griess. From all 

 parts of the world pupils came to work under him, and I 

 have heard him relate with pardonable pride how he was 

 always sure in his e.xtensive travels to find old pupils, be it 

 in the e.xtreme west and south of the United States or on the 

 outskirts of European civilization in Egypt and Asia Minor. 

 The Royal College of Chemistry became a place of pilgrimage 

 for the young chemist, similar to Liebig's laboratory in 

 Giessen, or to Berzelius's house in Stockholm, or Gay-Lus- 

 sac's in Paris, in earlier times. 



Nevertheless, he acceptod a call in 1862 to found a Univer- 

 sity Laboratory at Bonn, and actually planned and superin- 

 tended the erection of the building. Before he could enter 

 upon his duties as director, however, he received an invita- 

 tion to a still larger field. He was to become the successor 

 in Berlin of two recently deceased chemists of great renown, 

 Mitscherlich and Heinrich Rose. A new University Labora- 

 tory was to be built in what was rapidly becoming the 

 metropolis of Germany ; the Eoyal Academy was anxious to 

 provide additional facilities for private research. So it hap- 

 pened that Hofman really went straight from Loudon to 

 Berlin, in 1865; Kekule filled the vacancy in Bonn, while 

 Williamson assumed charge of the Eoyal College of Chem- 

 istry. 



Until his death, Hofmann remained at the head of chemi- 

 cal affairs in Berlin. The laboratory was built in 1867, and 

 at once was completely filled with students ; in a short while it 

 became rather uncomfortably crowded, and has remained so 

 until now. It has alwaj'S harbored numerous foreigners, 

 especially Americans. As member of the Prussian Academy, 

 he was entitled to a research laboratory and a dwelling, which 

 were so connected with the Students' Laboratorv that no time 



