PAUL C.:FREER, CHEMIST. 
By H. D. GiBss, 
Chief of the Division of Organic Chemistry, Bureau of Science, and Associate 
Professor of Chemistry, University of the Philippines. 
In 1887 Paul C. Freer received the degree of doctor of philos- 
ophy in Munich. It is astonishing to note the number of great 
chemists who have received their first inspiration in chemical 
research in Professor Adolf von Baeyer’s laboratory in Munich, 
and who have absorbed and later radiated the teachings of 
this great master. This period in v. Baeyer’s work was largely 
devoted to the study of the structure of ring compounds and 
very soon afterward he published his classic series of articles 
on the structure of the benzene ring and the reduction of 
terephthalic acid.2 
For some years before Doctor Freer received his degree, W. H. 
Perkin, jr., son of the Perkin who founded the industry of the 
manufacture of coal tar dyes, had been working in v. Baeyer’s 
laboratory on the synthesis of ring compounds. In 1885 the 
first part of the article “On the Synthetical Formation of Closed 
Carbon-Chains” ? was published. The continuation of this ar- 
ticle ? was published by the joint authorship of Freer and Perkin 
and was a further study of the construction of the ring com- 
pounds from open chains. Parts II and III were published by 
Perkin alone and in Parts IV and V Freer‘ again appears as 
*Ann. d. Chem. (Liebig) (1888), 245, 1038; (1889), 251, 257; (1890), 
256, 1. 
2 Journ. Chem. Soc. London (1885) 47, 801, Part I. On some derivatives 
of trimethylene. 
* The synthetical formation of closed carbon-chains, part I (continued). 
The action of ethylene bromide on the sodium-derivatives of ethylic aceto- 
acetate, benzoyl-acetate and acetone-dicarboxylate, by P. C. Freer, Ph. D. 
and W. H. Perkin, jr., Ph. D., ibid. (1887), 51, 820. 
“The synthetical formation of closed carbon-chains, part IV. Some 
derivatives of hexamethylene, by Paul C. Freer, Ph. D. and W. H. Perkin, 
jr., Ph. D., ibid. (1888), 53, 202; Part V. Experiments on the synthesis 
of heptamethylene derivatives, by Paul C. Freer, Ph. D. and W. H. Perkin, 
jr., Ph. D., ibid., 215. XXXV 
