8 ll t Ch 8 ( 0 rarely is plagiarism involved. When the background knowl- JEAN-BAPTISTE DUMAS (1800-1884): edge is complete, the subsequent discovery is almost inevitable THE VICTOR HUGO OF CHEMISTRY (10). n . Ch t n, S f rd Un v r t f r n nd t Romanticism is the term used to gather together a whole series r nt d r p t v t r t th v n f Ch l of literary and artistic movements of the late 18th to late 19th Ed t n t th 8th t n l M t n f th A r n Ch l centuries. These various movements, which spread through- S t n M h 0- S pt b r 8 out Europe and even to America, had one common element - h t r d l v l bl r f r n r n th n r l the rejection of the traditions and rules of classicism, of the h t r f h tr r E rb r h Ev l t n f Ch tr , "Establishment", as it were. Romanticism produced n ld Y r 2 M t r h t r l Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley; Goethe and Heine; Hugo and r nd f Ch tr , W l Y r 6 nd A Ihd h Dumas (Alexandre, that is); Pushkin; and Poe. It produced v l p nt f M d rn Ch tr , rp r Y r 64 th Delacroix, Constable, and Turner; Schumann, Chopin and th t r nd Ihd v l r rr ntl v l bl v r Liszt; and, of course, Wagner, who tried to put it all together in r pr nt rt n t n A t r fCh tr 4 l M ll n his musical dramas. The Romantics' emphasis on emotion nd n nd Y r 6 - 0 h r pr h n v th n over reason, and on subjectivity and imagination over objectiv- th th r nd h v r pl t r f r n t th r n l l t r t r ity and intellect, would seem to rule out any inclusion of the v r t f l t v h tt nt n t th 20th nt r nd sciences in these movements. But we know better. We know l t n th n b t d v l p nt ft r W rld W r I Ihd v l that science is not just a collection of facts and techniques; that h th b t v r f th f r t h lf f th 20th nt r nd n l d it is a human endeavor, carried out in the context of a specific p f b bl r ph n t nd pp nd n d v r f th society or culture. We know that scientists are not (or at least l nt r d t v t p nd b l r z n th n not always) one-dimensional, narrowly trained and focused, 2 r nd l nd A Ihd " t r f th n t and cooly objective; but are three-dimensional human beings r h" I , 6 62, - 6 with interests in, and with attitudes affected by, the arts, S l t bl St t , Inn nd n 2 literature, religion, and politics. 4 A Ihd v l p nt f M d rn Ch tr . rp r In that wonderful volume of biographical essays, Gr t Y r 64 Ch pt r 2 nd Ch t , edited by Eduard Farber, there is a short piece on S fr d " v r nd th hl t C nn t n" Jean-Baptiste Dumas and Charles-Adolphe Wurtz, written by A b x, 8 6, -40 nd " h Ch l v l t n n th t r Georges Urbain and first presented to the Société Chimique de f Ch tr " O r . 88 4, 4- 0 France in May of 1934. Urbain gave an unusual and provoca- 6 r t ( t r t C r r n t r . (Of th tive summary of his two subjects when he wrote (1): t r f h n . A d En l h tr n l t n th n b W ll Ell r n rd p bl h d b E tt n Y 6 v n n th br ll nt p r d f r nt th d d n t p t lt n S t fC h l h l ph , 2 l - nfl n th t r f h tr nd W rtz t r t ff M n h t r nd nd n 808 8 0 Al r f r n 4 S nt - v Ch pt r 4 nd 6 8 Ihd r f r n 4 Ch pt r nd 8 Because I knew a bit about Hugo, my first reaction to this . Ib d., Ch pt r nd 20 statement was perhaps a little odd: I wondered whether Wurtz 0 A Ihd " h In v t b l t f S nt f v r " S . had tried to steal Dumas' wife ( Sainte-Beuve did to Hugo). M nthl , 48 6 , 42 -42 I have seen no evidence that this was the case; apparently all that was implied was that Wurtz was a pupil and a friend of Dumas. The parallels between Wurtz and Sainte-Beuve will r. A r n . Ihd r f r E r t n th p rt nt f have to await another paper. But the statement intrigued me. Ch tr f th Un v r t f W n n. M d n, WI 06. In what sense was Dumas the Victor Hugo of chemistry? This h j t p bl h d th b "Ch tr A d fr essay is my attempt to answer that question. ll. A t r f th Ch tr p rt nt t th There are, in fact, a number of parallels in the lives of these Un v r t f W n n n M d n". two men (2,3). First of all, they were almost exact contempo- raries; Dumas was born in July 1800, 19 months before Hugo, and died in April 1884, 13 months before Hugo. Their childhood and adolescence spanned the rise and fall of Napo- leon I. Hugo's father was an officer in Napoleon's army; Dumas at the age of 14 was determined to join the navy, but was ll t Ch 8 ( 0
Establishment, the orthodoxies of their respective fields. Though the Romantic movement in literature had begun in France with Mme. de Stael and Chateaubriand, the official model for poetry and drama was still the pseudo-classicism of Voltaire. Then, in the Preface to his 1827 play Cr ll , Hugo produced an extensive and strongly argued manifesto for romanticism in which he claimed that in the progression of man from the primitive to the civilized modern, romanticism was historically inevitable - a new phase in social evolution. The result was that, suddenly, at the age of 25, Hugo was freely acknowledged as the leader of the Romantics in France. Chemistry, in its modern sense, was a relatively young science in the 1820s; Lavoisier and his followers had set it on its feet only a generation earlier. But, like literature, it had its orthodoxy, its official models, too. In molecular structure. there was the electrochemical dualism of the great Swedish chemist I3erzelius. Briefly, this explained chemical combina- tion by assuming that atoms had electrical polarity. n- pt t Oxygen was the most negative atom, potassium the most positive, with the others falling between. In general, metals prevented by the upheavals of 1814-1815 (Napoleon's abdica- were positive and even when they combined with oxygen, the tion, exile, escape, and Waterloo). oxide showed a residual positive character: Both men showed early signs of brilliance. Hugo's poetry won the recognition of the French Academy when he was just K(+) + 0(-) K20(+) 15; Dumas' name appeared on many journal articles (in phar- macy and physiology) before he was out of his teens. Nonmetals might be positive toward oxygen, but negative Both had wide-ranging talents and interests. Indeed, it can toward metals. Nonmetal oxides always showed negative be argued that neither man's most important work is widely character: known today. To the general public (certainly in the English- speaking world) Hugo is most famous for two novels - tr S(+) + 0(-) —> SO,(-) d r with its hunchbacked bellringer Quasimodo, and M r bl (especially since it has been given a Salts were the result of the combination of positive metallic musical score in a pop soft-rock idiom). But it was Hugo's oxides with negative nonmetallic oxides, but were not neces- plays which established him as the leader of the Romantic sarily neutral: movement in France, and it is his poetry which makes secure his exalted position in French literature. We know of his plays mainly because Verdi chose two of them as the basis for his operas b l tt and rn n became Ern n . The poetry, however, apparently loses too much in translation, since it is almost unknown in English. To the general chemical public of today, Dumas is known for two analytical methods which he developed or refined - one for the determination of molecular weights by vapor density and the other for the determination of nitrogen in organic compounds. Yet he was also a brilliant teacher. He held professorships at the Athanaeum, the Sorbonne, the Ecole Polytechnique, and the Ecole de Médecine (some simultane- ously) and was a prolific writer on many philosophical and scientific subjects. Indeed, it is his work on the theory of organic chemistry which secures his place in the history of chemistry, t r ht n h r t r t p t Both Hugo and Dumas became famous and widely known th A d fr n b th r t r t Mér é in the intellectual circles of their day when they challenged the 10 ll t Ch 8 ( 0
IS0(+ + SO (- —> K2S0•S0 (+ r IC2SO4(+ bl h Eth r n h r f nd ll ( 828
bl lt l th l r n th b n t n f " th r n" C2I- 4 n n t v nd n t v lt: 3
l h l C2 4• 20 h dr x d 4 2O
th r 2C2 4• 2O x d 2 4 0 A n b n th n t ll th t d ff r nt fr r rr nt 2 n pt f l tr n t v t nd pl d-b th r t hl r d C2 4- C hl r d Cl n th r n f ld f r n h tr d ff lt r h f th t r "r d l" t d n t t r r p n tr - C2 4• O2 n tr t • O f t th t t d n t n h l b n t n h d b n 2 r nd n th 8 b n n n l t r b G t n d t t C •C 0 t t 0 0 M rv t l (4 In 8 th d l t th r xt nd d 2 4 2 4 2 2 4 2 b rz l t r n p nd ( :
All r n b t n r x d f p nd r d l h r d l v n ff b th ndl d th t t h nd h f v t bl b t n n r ll n t f rb n nd h dr n h K n d h fr nd Al x ndr r n rt d r t r f th th f n l b t n f rb n h dr n nd x n t t n l b r t r f th r l p r l n r t Sévr t nv t t p d th pr bl n t h n- n-l n- In 82 -28 nd l d r ll ( ph r t pt t h n d nt f d th rr t nt h dr n dv n d th t n th t p nd r l t d t l h l hl r d th ndl x h v n b n bl h d th hl r n ht b nd r t d dd t n pr d t f th l n ( th r n d f rth r t d f th hl r n t n f x l nd j t n p nd r dd t n pr d t f th l nd f nd th t hl r n b rb d nd h dr n n ( bl h v n n l d d th t th l n hl r d tt d n l nt l l d t b b nd ld h th l l n b h v r n d v r f th t - t r t n b t n hl r n nd f nl t r l bl n t r All th xpl n d n l h l (v d h dr t f th r n t pr d hl r l: d l t t r ( t rz l h n d th r d l th- r n b t th nt n n r h f r nd t d f th r h dr r- b n "r d l " d h nf n nd l d lt t l t th d nf ll f th d l t d l (6 In 8 4 d r t n t rn t n - r t h "Cr ll r f " th h h d dn t r n z t f ll t th A r lt f th t d h t t d h l f b t t t n: t - b pr p n h " f S b t t t n" A th t r th r b ll h ld t th l r n r nd f Wh n b t n nt n n h dr n xp d t th d h dr - n z n t n f hl r n br n r d n f r v r v l f h dr n th t t l t t p n l nt f th h l n Wh n th b t n nt n t r t l th h dr n rr - p nd n t th t r th t r pl nt
t th t n th x d t n f l h l t ld h d th hl r n r v th x n t d h dr n th t b t t - t n b t n th nd r t n t pr d hl r l (tr hl r - t ld h d th hl r n t b t t t n -f r- n th h dr n tt h d t rb n v n nt f rth r nd n d r d th x d t n f l h l t t d b t - t t n n h h h h dr n r pl d b n -h lf t f x n:
h d r t n p b th r h t p ll ön rz l A t r nt rz l n t t ll h pp th th ll t Ch 8 ( 0 theory, for it seemed to imply that electropositive hydrogen could be substituted by electronegative oxygen or halogens without any drastic alteration in the structure, and his dualism would not allow this. Then a few years later (1839), Dumas reported that he had taken the known reaction in which trichloroacetic acid is decomposed into chloroform and carbon dioxide and repeated it with acetic acid, producing methane and carbon dioxide:
CC13CH02 + alkali —> CO2 + CHCl3
+ alkali —> CO2 +
Here chlorine and hydrogen obviously play the same role. The theory of types, as it became known, was a definite challenge to the dualism of Berzelius, for it considered molecules to be unitary structures whose properties depend on the position and arrangement of the atoms rather than their intrinsic positive or negative character. The battle raged between the classical dualists and the revolutionary unitarians with the French chemists largely championing the unitary theory and Dumas as their acknowledged leader. (There was also a rather nasty internal argument between Dumas and Laurent as to which of them really originated the type theory, but that's another story.) Hugo and Dumas each belonged to the appropriate prestig- ious French Academy and Dumas was eventually made perma- nent secretary of the Academie des Sciences. Both men were r t r z d b n ré r egotists and were not above using their positions and prestige for their own purposes. Dumas was practically the dictator of elected to the new Assembly along with a man who had just French chemistry from 1840 to about 1865. He was respon- returned to France, one Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (nephew of sible for the "exile" from Paris to provincial universities of the late Emperor). He backed Louis in his campaign for the Auguste Laurent, Charles Gerhardt, and others with whom he Presidency of the Second Republic, but when, after his elec- quarreled. Hugo in his later years became an insatiable tion, Louis began to follow in his uncle's footsteps and under- womanizer, bedding chambermaids, leading actresses, and mine parliamentary rule, Hugo turned against him. When great ladies who found him, or rather his aura of literary Louis was declared Emperor Napoleon III in 1851, Hugo had demigod, irresistible. But let's be more positive. to flee for his life. He lived first in Brussels, then in the Channel Both Dumas and Hugo devoted large portions of their lives Islands, which belong to England but lie within sight of France. to politics and public service and made important contributions On the Isle of Guernsey he wrote poetry, novels (including to life in France quite aside from their major fields of endeavor. M r bl , and some anti-Imperial broadsides. He returned Despite the high position his father had held under Napoleon, to France in 1870 during the tumultuous birth of the Third Victor Hugo was in his youth a firm Royalist and had been Republic and moved back permanently in 1873 to live out his given a sort of fellowship (a pension) by the King so that he years as the "Grandpere", the Grand Old Man, revered by all. could devote himself to his writing. But his political views He continued to write, mostly poetry, until his death in 1885. began to shift, especially after the July Revolution of 1830 in Dumas' political career did not really begin until almost all which Charles X was replaced by Louis-Phi Ilipe. His writings his scientific work had been accomplished. By 1840, as we became more liberal and more republican. Some of his friends have seen, he was the most powerful chemist in the country. were shocked in 1845 when he became a Peer of France (was His politics had been moderately conservative; he had pros- appointed to the House of Lords) and felt that he was betraying pered under the Monarchy. But after the 1848 Revolution he, his beliefs for the sake of position. However, he proved to be like Hugo. was elected to the Assembly, and he served as politically independent and actually had more contact with the Minister of Agriculture from 1850-1851. Unlike Hugo, he leftist utopian reformers than with the moderates. After the backed Louis-Napoleon and became a Senator in the Second 1848 Revolution and the establishment of the Republic, Hugo Empire. He was on the Municipal Council of Paris for many campaigned as a middle-of-the-road independent and was years and became its President (in effect, the mayor) in 1859. 2 ll t Ch 8 ( 0
During his administration, the drainage and lighting systems of Ch tr , rp r Y r Y 64 pp 84- 8 nd r f r n the city were greatly improved and work was begun on the Ch p - system of aqueducts and tunnels to supply Paris with spring M r bl . n n Cl 82 p 28 water. In 1870, the upheaval which brought Hugo back to (tr n l t n b nn France led to the resignation of Dumas from public service and 8 Q t d n r f r n p 2 his return to chemistry. He too remained active almost until his death, publishing papers on topics such as fermentation and the occlusion of oxygen in silver. r. n Ch t n Ch r n f th p rt nt f Ch tr It seems to me that there are enough parallels to make a f S f rd Un v r t , r n h , A 22 . nd nt r good case for Urbain's statement. Let me close with a curious t d n th r t b f h tr . Ch r El t f th twist. In M r bl there is a character called Grantaire v n f r th t r f Ch tr f th A r n Ch who drinks a lot and, when in his cups, is given to eloquent l S t . flights of discourse, ranging over history, philosophy and, in at least one instance, science. In Part Four, Book XII, Chapter 3, he says (7): VICTOR SERRIN AND THE ORIGINS OF C r d r n t thr t th G v rn nt nd th t th THE CHAINOMATIC BALANCE tr th tr th f t th t b t n r r d nd f r d th r r nt r d t d t th t I r tr b t th t M hn . St , Un v r t f C nn t t f th r l b n t d b I ldn t nd r t nd th - t With a history of thousands of years, the conventional, or two- pan, balance is known to everyone; it is the symbol of justice. Now M r bl was written in 1862. In 1842, three Various forms of this instrument are in worldwide use, al- years before Gerhardt coined the phrase "homologous series" though the so-called single-pan balance and, latterly, the for sets of compounds whose composition differed only by a electronic balance, have largely displaced the two-pan version multiple of CH2, Dumas had shown that such a relation exists in the laboratory. among fatty acids, and in his paper had affirmed that between Trade in small but valuable objects, such as gemstones and formic and margaric acids there were exactly 15 intermediate gold coins, encouraged the development of the balance. Instru- acids, of which nine were known at that time and six remained ments of quite high sensitivity were in use by the 16th century. to be found (8). Dumas, as an educated man of his time, must The introduction of regional or national standards of weights have almost certainly read Hugo's works and, as the above and measures further emphasized the need for precision bal- quote suggests, it seems that the converse must also be true! ances, taxing the skill of 18th- and early 19th-century instru- ment makers such as Jesse Ramsden (1), Thomas Robinson References and Notes (2), and Henry Barrow (3). Instruments designed for chemical work are routinely 1. G. Urbain, "Jean-Baptiste Dumas and Charles-Adolphe expected to be able to detect a mass difference of one part in a Wurtz", in E rb r d Gr t Ch t , Int r n bl h r million. For a 100-gram maximum load, this means weighing Y 6 pp 2 - to the nearest 0.1 milligram. The results obtained in the use of 2 h b r ph l nf r t n n bt n d fr even the finest two-pan balance depend ultimately upon the t n r : S C K p r " n- pt t Dumas", in C. self-consistency and accuracy of the associated standard Gillespie, ed., t n r f S nt f r ph , l 4 S r bn r weights. These are added or removed by tweezers. However, Y pp 242-48 nd W Al br " n pt t Andr very small weights are difficult to handle in this fashion and are " . Ch . Ed ., 1951, 28, 6 0-6 easily lost. Conventionally, this problem is minimized by the h r r n b r f b r ph f v r r d bl use of a "rider" that can be suitably placed on a graduated scale n M ph n t r : A l t r ph f th Gr t on the beam of the balance. For example, a 10-milligram rider nt , bl d Y 42 placed very near to the center knife or fulcrum of the beam 4 S Ch t n f th Ch l v l t n rt could exert the same turning force as a 0.3-milligram weight Méth d d n l t r Ch " ll. t. Ch ., 1989, , that was placed directly on the balance pan, Manley (4) . attributes the introduction of the principle of the rider to , Q t d n rt n t n A Sh rt t r f Ch tr , Berzelius. It is certain that British balance maker Ludwig v r Y r Y 8 p 2 Oertling received a medal for his balance "with graduated 6 r n r l b r nd n th nfl t b t n th d l t beam and sliding apparatus", shown during the 1851 Great nd n t r th r A Ihd h v l p nt f M d rn Exhibition in London (1).