Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character, Vol. 118, No. 780 (Apr. 2, 1928), pp. i-vi Published by: The Royal Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/94933 . Accessed: 05/05/2014 20:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The Royal Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.132.123.28 on Mon, 5 May 2014 20:00:46 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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Obituary Notices of Fellows DeceasedSource: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of aMathematical and Physical Character, Vol. 118, No. 780 (Apr. 2, 1928), pp. i-viPublished by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/94933 .
Accessed: 05/05/2014 20:00
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
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The Royal Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of theRoyal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character.
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TIE earlier years of AL-BN HALLER were spent, in his native village of Felle4- ingen, not far from Mulhouse, where he was born on March 7th,; 1849. He was the eldest son of a family of eleven, and at the age of 14, after he had attended -the primary school at Wesserling, he was apprenticed as a carpenter in his father's workshop. However, by a lucky chance, he happened, two years later, to make the acquaintance of a pharmacist, M. Achille Gault, who took him into his laboratory and gave him his first lessons in chemistry. For three years M. Gault, who was quick to recognize the marked ability of his pupil, devoted his leisure time to the training of Haller, and ultimately sent him to his brother M. Leon Gault, of Colmar, to whom he became assistant.
Early in the Franco-Prussian war Haller volunteered for service, joining at Belfort in 1870, but after the disastrous year of 1871 he elected to remain in France and rejoined M. Gault at Nancy, where he assisted in the establishment of a pharmacy, and continued to study for his pharmaceutical examinations under the direction of his master. In 1872 the University of Strasbourg was established at Nancy, and Haller became in rapid succession " aide-prlparateur, " pr~parateur " and chef de travaux" in the Ecole Superieure de Pharmacie. In 1879 he obtained the " doctorat es sciences and in 1885 -was appointed a professor in the Faculty of Science-of the University. By this time his keen insight and great manipulative skill as a research worker, and his marked ability as an administrator and inspiring lecturer, had become generally recog- nized, so that in 1899 he was called to Paris as successor to Friedel and Wurtz at the Sorbonne. From this time onward, up to within a very short period of his death, at the age of 76, Haller continued to publish at frequent intervals a great number of original memoirs amounting in all to 250, covering a wide range of chemical research. His great organizing ability enabled him to establish the Institut Chimique of the University of Nancy in 1890, and subsequently a similar organization devoted to the study of physical and electro-chemistry. He was chiefly responsible for the development of the teaching of applied chemistry in France, and in 1908 succeeded Berthelot as President of the Commission on Explosives.
The scientific work of Albin Haller was chiefly on the organic side of chemistry, and was carried out during a period of more than fifty years of a long and active life. Perhaps his most striking work is embodied in his contributions t6 the chemistry of camphor, that elusive ketone which baffled the efforts of several of the leading organic chemists of the world to determine its structure for upwards of thirty years. A substance of obvious homogeneity, markedly crystalline, and of simple molecular complexity, camphor possesses that
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peculiar form of structure, of which we still know so little, which causes it to yield, in accordance with the character of the reagent used, derivatives and degradation products which may belong either to the aromatic or aliphatic series. It is in fact, an aromatic-aliphatic compound, and although, at the present time, we know its structure, we are, nevertheless, able to appreciate the great difficulties which confronted the pioneers in this field, and to sympathize with those who made false deductions from the experimental facts they obtained. It is a remarkable tribute to the intuition possessed by Haller that amid the mass of conflicting and apparently unrelated facts, and the persistence of many contending hypotheses, he was able to steer the right course and to place the chemistry of camphor on a basis which ultimately led to the elaboration of its true formula by Bredt and to its final preparation by synthesis. Haller showed, for example, that camphoric acid was a dibasic (dicarboxylic) acid, and he was able to regenerate camphor from it by working through camphoric anliydride and campholide, a process used later by Komppa in his classical synthesis of the ketone. Moreover, Haller showed conclusively that camphor
CH2 possessed the formula C8H114 | a fact which he established by preparing
c0 arylidene and alkylidene camphors and by the production of cyanocamphor
01H . CN H11H | from sodio-camphor and cyanogen chloride. In his experi-
CO ments with sodio-camphor he noticed that the hydrogen generated in the reaction between sodium and the ketone led to a partial reduction of the products formed, and he therefore introduced the use of sodamide, a substance which yields the sodio derivative smoothly and without the formation of a deleterious by-product.
-CH2- CO -+ NH2Na -CHNa-C0O--+ NHs.
If it be true that the definition of a great chemist is one who introduces a new reagent, then undoubtedly Haller falls within the definition, for sodamide proved to be a substance of very considerable value for research purposes, not only in his hands, but also to many other organic chemists who have had to deal with the formation of derivatives through the sodio derivatives of ketones and ketonic esters.
Haller used the reagent in a variety of ways with very fruitful results, and technically it has been applied in the Heumann synthesis of indigo, thus enabling this method to become a real economic competitor with other syn- thetical processes. It is impossible in a memoir such as this to give more than a very brief account of the matters dealt with in Haller's many publications. His researches on pseudo-acids, on alcoholysis, on optical rotatory power are
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all deserving of detailed treatment, as are also his many discoveries in branches of organic chemistry other than those mentioned above.
It is sufficient to say that all the sections of organic chemical science in which he worked he enriched by his discoveries, and the literature he created stands as a permanent record to his memory. Many students passed through his hands, and many still live to bear witness to his inspiring personality and lucid power as a teacher.
He was elected a Foreign Member of the Society in 1921, and was awarded the Davy Medal in 1917.
J. F. T.
FRANCIS ROBERT JAPP-1848--1925.
FRANCIS ROBERT JA PP who died on August 1, 1925, at the advanced age of 77, was born at Dundee on February 8, 1848. He was the youngest son of James Japp, minister of the Catholic Apostolic Church in that city, and received his earlier education in the High School there. At the age of sixteen he went to the Madras College at St. Andrews, and three years later entered the University as an Arts Student. Japp graduated M.A. at St. Andrews in 1868, and then went to the University of Edinburgh to study law, but had to relinquish his studies in the summer of 1869 on account of failing health. Without question, had Japp been able to continue his studies at Edinburgh he would have become a distinguished lawyer and would have been lost to chemistry; because the state of his health rendered it necessary for him to reside abroad, during 1871-1873 he spent his time at Gottingen, Berlin and Heidelberg, places which were centres of chemical activity in those days as they are now. The record of the following two years may be told in Japp's own words, communicated to Dr. Alexander Findlay, author of the obituary notice in the Journal of the Chemical Society, which he has been good enough to allow the writer to use for the purposes of this memoir.
"In the spring of 1873 I returned to England and spent the time partly in London, partly in Scotland. I had by this time taken up the subject of chemis- try, in which I had always been interested. In the autumn of 1873 I returned to Heidelberg and began the study of that subject under Bunsen. I was then twenty-five years of age, and my friends, who had long despaired of my ever taking up anything seriously, regarded this last step as the crowning folly of a
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hopeless career." In 1875 Japp graduated Ph.D. at Heidelberg, and then went to Bonn to work in the laboratory of August Kekule. Here he remained for three years, and the admiration and affection he felt for his great teacher is clearly expressed in the Memorial Lecture he gave before the Chemical Society in 1897 (" J. Chem. Soc.," vol. 73, p. 97, 1898).
Japp returned to Scotland in 1878 and continued his research work in the laboratory of Professor Crum Brown at Edinburgh, but was appointed in the same year by Professor (later Sir) Edward Frankland to take charge of the research laboratory which had been established at the Normal School of Science, South Kensington. When the Science and Art Department took over the Science Schools in 1881, Japp was appointed Assistant-Professor in the reorga- nised Normal School of Science and Royal School of Mines, working, first, under E. Frankland, and subsequently, under T. E. Thorpe, who succeeded Frankland in the Chair of Chemistry in 1885. It is evident that at this period Japp's power and ability as a research worker was generally recognised, for in this year he was elected a Fellow of the Society at the age of 37. In 1889 Japp was appointed to the Chair of Chemistry in the University of Aberdeen, in succession to Thomas Carnelley, a post which he held until his retirement in 1914.
During the twelve'years Japp remained in London, he took an active part in all chemical matters which centred in the activities of the Chemical Society, and was a prominent member of Council and of the Publication Committee. He attended most of the scientific meetings and joined in the discussions on the papers read. On these occasions it is said that " opportunity arose for his revealing, not only his dry h-umour, but also his profound knowledge of chemical literature and a width of classical and philosophical reading altogether beyond. the range of the attainments of the great majority of his contemporary chemical colleagues." After his departure, Japp seldom revisited London, and but few of the rising generations of chemists, from 1890 onward, ever saw him. About half of his published papers appeared during the London period, and the number of his collaborators shows that he was always able to gather round him a large and enthusiastic band of workers. During this period he also published (with E. Frankland) a text-book on Inorganic Chemistry, and later he collaborated with the same author in the preparation of a new edition of Frankland's c" Lecture Notes on Organic Chemistry."
The Chemistry Department of the University of Aberdeen was, when Japp took over the duties of Professor, housed in a series of four or five rooms, badly lit and ventilated, and it was clear to him that he could not build up a school of research under the conditions that existed. He therefore set to work to arouse public opinion, and succeeded so well that when the new buildings were erected in 1896 Japp found himself in possession of new laboratories, which at that time must have been regarded as ample. At the same period developments took place in the University curriculum, and it
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fell to Japp's lot to establish a school of advanced chemical study. This he did so efficiently that he was able to raise the University standard in chemistry from one which dealt mainly with the requirements of medical and elementary students, to one which embodied a school of advanced study and research, from which emerged a steady succession of able chemists, many of whom occupy at the present time important, academical and industrial posts in various parts of the world.
During the tenure of the chair at Aberdeen Japp published some 40 papers, mainly with the help of his research assistants and his graduate pupils. His last paper-that is to say, the last to which he put his name--appeared in 1905; but for the ensuing 19 years, until his retirement, many important communications issued from his laboratory, and although his name does not appear on them, they were nevertheless mostly inspired and directed by him. It was characteristic of his self-effacing modesty that he should wish to let his younger co-workers have all the credit for the work they carried out with him.
Although a man of wide knowledge and broad views, Japp's actual research work was restricted to a comparatively narrow field, and practically the whole of it was conducted with phenanthraquinone, benzil and benzoin as raw materials. His object, as he himself has stated, was the synthesis of cycloids containing not only carbon but also oxygen and nitrogen as members of the ring. By doing this he hoped not only to throw light on the ease of formation and reactions of such cyclic compounds, but also by comparing like with like to gain some insight regarding the structure of benzene and allied substances. With those objects in view he prepared a number of oxazoles, iminazoles, furfurans, indoles, azines, pyrrolones and pyrroles; and in the homocyclic series, anhydracetone benzil and its carboxylic acid, using, for the most part, a new reaction he had discovered, namely, the condensation of ketones with aldehydes in the presence of ammonia or caustic potash. Indeed, he applied this reaction in many directions, and was able to prepare a number of com- pounds which served to elucidate the structures of several organic substances prepared by others, the constitutions of which were in doubt.
Japp was Foreign Secretary of the Chemical Society from 1885 to 1891, and Vice-President from 1895 to 1899. In 1891 he was awarded the Longstaff Medal of the Society, the highest mark of appreciation which British chemists can show. In 1898 he was President of Section B of the British Association, and delivered a striking address which was an argument, based on the results of stereochemical investigation, in favour of the doctrine of vitalism. Apart from his distinction as a chemist Japp was a linguist of considerable attainments, and the literatures of Germany, France and Italy were open to him in the languages of their authors. He was, moreover, a musician of no mean skill. After his retirement from the chair at Aberdeen in 1914, he resided first at
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Acton and later at Richmond, where he died. The closing years of his life were saddened by the death of his only son, who died in 1920 from an illness contracted while on military service. In 1921 Japp had to undergo an operation from the effect of which he never completely recovered. In his last years failure of eyesight deprived him of the companionship of books. In 1879 he married Elizabeth Tegetmeyer, of Kelbra-Kyffhduser, a small town near Nordhausen, by whom and by two daughters he is survived.
J. F. T.
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