Chapter 4: Organic Chemistry

4.1 General

No one who has studied the history of organic chemistry for a long time can fail to be impressed by considerable changes in the historiography of the subject over the last twelve years or so. In Recent Developments in the History of Chemistry the chapter on organic chemistry ^[1] had almost three-hundred references to literature from the previous quarter century, of which most applied to what might be termed classical organic chemistry , i.e. the subject in pre-electronic days. However, a trend noted in Chapter 1 of this volume appears to be even more pronounced for organic chemistry than for other branches. This is a relocation of interest from the classical to the modern period, and especially to the very recent past. To be sure there have been major studies of Liebig, Kekul , Kolbe, Frankland, Hofmann and a few others, but they have demonstrated how much there is still to be learned about a whole range of different approaches to organic chemistry and about inter-personal relationships between organic chemists. Where, for instance, is any biographical treatment of B. F. Duppa, a pioneer in acetoacetic ester chemistry and much else in related fields? Above all, the nuances of theoretical schemes are only beginning to emerge from such studies and from the all too rare attempts to study in depth salient concepts and ideas.

A second feature, also noted earlier, is the interest of many living chemists in the history of their science, often manifested in some autobiographical form. A third characteristic of many of the...