Emil Fischer Papers, 1876-1919
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http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6000053v No online items Finding Aid to the Emil Fischer Papers, 1876-1919 Processed by The Bancroft Library staff The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, California, 94720-6000 Phone: (510) 642-6481 Fax: (510) 642-7589 Email: [email protected] URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu © 1996 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Note This finding aid has been fimed for the National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States (Chadwyck-Healey Inc.) Finding Aid to the Emil Fischer BANC MSS 71/95 z 1 Papers, 1876-1919 Finding Aid to the Emil Fischer Papers, 1876-1919 Collection number: BANC MSS 71/95 z The Bancroft Library University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, California Contact Information: The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, California, 94720-6000 Phone: (510) 642-6481 Fax: (510) 642-7589 Email: [email protected] URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu Processed by: The Bancroft Library staff Date Completed: ca. 1971 Encoded by: Xiuzhi Zhou © 1996 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Collection Summary Collection Title: Emil Fischer Papers, Date (inclusive): 1876-1919 Collection Number: BANC MSS 71/95 z Creator: Fischer, Emil, 1852-1919 Extent: Number of containers: 39 boxes, 12 cartons, 7 oversize folders, 15 oversize volumes Repository: The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California 94720-6000 Physical Location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog. Abstract: Correspondence; manuscripts, including drafts of his autobiography; reprints of his writings; subject files relating to his research and to work during World War I, and to professional activities; laboratory notebooks, his own and those of his students; clippings; photographs; and certificates of election or appointment to scientific societies. Also included: two boxes of correspondence and papers of his son, Hermann, mainly letters of condolence on the death of his father, and laboratory notebooks of some of his students. Languages Represented: Collection materials are in German Access Collection is open for research. Finding Aid to the Emil Fischer BANC MSS 71/95 z 2 Papers, 1876-1919 Publication Rights Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader. Preferred Citation [Identification of item], Emil Fischer Papers, BANC MSS 71/95 z, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley Materials Cataloged Separately Photographs transferred to the Pictorial Collections of The Bancroft Library Identifier/Call Number: (BANC PIC 1971.041--PIC) Portraits transferred to the Pictorial Collections of The Bancroft Library Identifier/Call Number: (BANC PIC 1971.017--POR) Biographical Sketch Emil Fischer, biochemist and Nobel Prize recipient, was born on October 9, 1852, at Euskirchen, near Bonn in Germany. Educated in Euskirchen and Bonn, in 1869 he was apprenticed for a short while to a brother-in-law, Ernst Friedrichs, a lumber merchant. Since he showed no aptitude for business, he soon returned to school in Bonn, where he particularly favored mathematics and physics. His father, however, urged him to take chemistry, a more practical science, and thus he became a pupil of August Kekulé in 1871. One year later he transferred to the University of Strasbourg to study under Adolf von Baeyer, graduating in 1875. Here he investigated beer-making organisms, a foundation for some of his future work with sugar and yeast. And from his association at this period with Dr. Ernst Fischer evolved his lifelong interest in experimental drugs. His isolation of the chemical compound of phenyl-hydrazine, while an assistant at the Strasbourg laboratory in 1875, was to form the cornerstone for much of his subsequent research, culminating in the synthesis of sugar some twelve years later. During the next three years in Munich, where Fischer had followed his master, Baeyer, he and his cousin, Otto Fischer, analyzed the composition of rosaniline bases, giving new impetus to the dye industry. Appointed Privat Dozent at the University of Munich in 1878, Fischer was named professor in 1879, and took charge of the analytical division of Baeyer's laboratory. Here he explored caffeine and theobromine and their derivatives, which in turn led to the classification of purine derivatives. From Munich, Fischer went on to Erlangen in 1882, to Würzburg in 1885, and in the fall of 1892 to Berlin, where, as successor to A. W. von Hofmann, he superintended the construction of a new laboratory, and pursued his study of the synthesis of natural sugars and of fermentation. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Fischer turned his attention to proteins, developing the so-called ester method, a process which facilitated qualitative and quantitative analysis of proteins. He then branched out into polypeptides and peptones with their endless synthetic variants. While much of Fischer's work was of a theoretical nature, many facets proved applicable to industry. His research into the composition of the tannin used in the tanning industry led to the production of valuable synthetic tanning compounds. The chemical industry often adopted to their use methods devised in Fischer's laboratory. Much interested in pharmaceutics, he was intimately associated in the development and manufacture of Veronal, Sajodin (a tasteless non-injurious compound), caffeine, and various bromide preparations. At the outbreak of World War I Fischer was involved in experimental studies with anti-cancer and diabetes drugs. During the war years, preoccupied by the lack of vital foodstuffs available in Germany, Fischer channeled his efforts to the utilization and transformation of raw materials into products suitable for human and animal consumption, such as the conversion of straw into digestible fodder for horses and cattle, and the preservation of vegetables, as well as the production of synthetic substitutes for coffee and butter. He was also instrumental in producing nitric acid as a replacement for the Chilean saltpeter used in making munitions, and provided synthetic substitutes for camphor. The fame of Fischer's teaching and the extensive publication of his experiments, models of clarity and succinctly recorded, attracted many promising young scientists to his laboratory, which turned out proficient and capable chemists, in great demand in industry. And the honors he won were numerous, including the Nobel Prize awarded him in 1902 for his work in the purine and sugar groups. His memberships in honorary and scientific organizations both in Germany and abroad numbered sixty-eight, according to Fischer himself. Fischer's unremitting efforts spearheaded the creation of the famed Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Chemie, a research foundation independent of teaching duties. In his last years, concerned over the plight of scientists during the war, he instigated the founding of the Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Förderung des chemischen Unterrichts, a society formed to encourage and to assist financially promising young chemists. Finding Aid to the Emil Fischer BANC MSS 71/95 z 3 Papers, 1876-1919 Always frail, his health further undermined from early days by the poisonous fumes of mercury and phenyl-hydrazine, saddened by the deaths of two of his sons during the war, and worn by constant effort, Emil Fischer died of cancer in Berlin on July 15, 1919. Scope and Content Fischer's papers, gift of his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Hermann O. L. Fischer, were presented to The Bancroft Library on November 12, 1970. They include correspondence with leading scientists and industrialists from 1876 to 1919; Fischer's laboratory notebooks as well as those of some of his students; subject files documenting his work on various compounds, his research during the war years, and his activities in the establishment of various scientific institutions and societies; manuscripts of many of his writings and published works, and certificates of appointments to many honorary and scientific societies. The collection as a whole documents the development of the new discipline of biochemistry and its many ramifications, touches on the growth of industry in Germany, and illustrates the impact of World War I both on industry and scientific thought and processes. The Key to Arrangement which follows describes the collection in greater detail. Boxes 1-6 Letters written by Emil Fischer, 1876-1919. Scope and Content Note Originals, drafts and carbon copies. Arranged chronologically. Undated and fragments of letters placed at the end of Box 6. Additional Note Boxes 1-6 on film. Do not use originals. Boxes 7-35 Letters written to Fischer. Scope and Content Note Include letters from family, colleagues, students, industrial figures, scientific societies and government agencies, relating in large part to his work in biochemistry, the testing of various drugs, and the development of ersatz materials during World War I. Arrangement Arranged alphabetically by author or organization, A-Z. Unlisted letters have been placed in miscellanies; Unidentified follow -Z. A partial list of correspondents may be consulted