Am.  Jour.  Pharrn.  \ 
September,  1907.  ) 
Obituaries, 
435 
First  came  the  death,  in  October  last,  of  the  author  of  the  monu- 
mental "  Handbook  of  Organic  Chemistry,"  Friedrich  Beilstein,  of 
St.  Petersburg.  This  book  has  grown  to  the  proportions  of  an 
encyclopedia,  the  last  edition  being  in  four  large  volumes,  and  it  has 
the  authority  of  an  indisputed  reference  book  for  chemical  students 
throughout  the  world.  We  have  received  the  last  edition  for  our 
library,  as  it  appeared  in  numbers,  direct  from  the  author,  who 
desired  to  show  his  appreciation  of  his  honorary  membership  in  the 
Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy. 
Friedrich  Beilstein  was  born  in  1838,  at  St.  Petersburg,  studied 
chemistry  with  Bunsen,  at  Heidelberg,  Germany,  in  1853-55  ;  with 
Liebig,  in  Munich,  in  1855  to  1856  ;  and  with  Wbhler,  in  Gottingen, 
in  1857-58,  in  which  latter  year  he  made  his  Doctor's  degree.  After 
spending  an  additional  year  with  Wurtz,  in  Paris,  he  returned  to 
Gottingen  and  became  assistant  to  Professor  Wbhler.  In  1865  he 
became  an  Assistant  Professor  at  Gottingen,  but  in  the  following 
year  received  a  call  to  St.  Petersburg,  his  native  city,  where  he  re- 
mained to  the  end  of  his  career.  While  Beilstein  published  more 
than  a  hundred  scientific  papers  and  devoted  some  considerable 
attention  to  the  investigation  of  the  Russian  petroleum,  his  name 
is  known  chiefly  by  his  monumental  work  before  referred  to.  The 
first  edition  of  this  appeared  in  1880-82,  and  at  once  became 
authoritative  for  all  workers  in  organic  chemistry.  The  third  edition 
(the  last  upon  which  Beilstein  himself  worked)  was  finished  in  1899, 
and  since  then  the  supplementary  volumes  which  are  to  keep  it  up 
to  current  conditions  of  chemistry  have  been  published  by  the 
Berlin  Chemical  Society  under  the  editorship  of  Professor  Jacobson. 
In  February  of  this  year  died  a  still  greater  Russian  chemist,  in 
fact,  the  most  distinguished  name  Russia  has  ever  produced  in 
chemistry,  viz.,  Mendelejeff,  known  to  every  chemical  student  as  the 
author  of  the  "  Periodic  System,"  the  most  important  and  far-reach- 
ing theory  of  the  chemical  elements  since  the  establishment  of  the 
atomic  theory  of  Dalton.  He  was  born  at  Tobolsk,  in  Siberia,  the 
youngest  child  of  a  family  of  seventeen.  His  early  education  was 
obtained  at  his  native  home  and  at  St.  Petersburg,  where  he  qualified 
as  a  lecturer  on  physics  and  chemistry  already  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
two,  and  began  at  this  age  his  publications  on  subjects  of  physical 
chemistry.  He  went  to  Heidelberg  in  i860,  remaining  there  two 
years,  having  a  small  private  laboratory  during  that  time,  and  pub- 
