Albert Friedrich Emil Niemann (May 20, 1834 – January 19, 1861) was a German
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...
. In 1859 - about the same time as
Paolo Mantegazza - he isolated
cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...
, and he published his finding in 1860.
Life
Niemann was born in
Goslar
Goslar (; Eastphalian: ''Goslär'') is a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Goslar and located on the northwestern slopes of the Harz mountain range. The Old Town of Goslar and the Mines ...
, then in the
Kingdom of Hanover
The Kingdom of Hanover (german: Königreich Hannover) was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Han ...
, the son of a school principal. In 1849 he began an apprenticeship at the town hall pharmacy in
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
, where, starting in 1852, he was a
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
student at the
George August University.
Cocaine
In the 19th century, there was great interest among European chemists in the effects of
coca leaves
Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine.
The plant is grown as a cash crop in the Argentine Northwest, Bolivia, ...
discovered in
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
. In 1855 the chemist
Friedrich Gaedcke
Friedrich Georg Carl (Friedrich) Gaedcke (5 June 1828 – 19 September 1890) was a German chemist. He was the first person to isolate the cocaine alkaloid in 1855.
Gaedcke named the alkaloid “erythroxyline,” and published a description in the ...
had published a treatise on an active alkaloid extract of the coca leaf he called ''erythroxyline'', after the genus ''
Erythroxylum
''Erythroxylum'' (''Erythroxylon'') is a genus of tropical flowering plants in the family Erythroxylaceae. Many of the approximately 200 species contain the substance cocaine,Bieri S, Brachet A, Veuthey J, Christen P. Cocaine distribution in wild ...
'', from which
cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...
-rich leaves are obtained. This extract was benzoylmethylecgonine, or cocaine, though it lacked in purity. He published a description in the journal ''
Archiv der Pharmazie
The ''Archiv der Pharmazie'' (German pronunciation: arˈçiːf ˈdeːɐ̯ farmaˈtsiː English: ''Archive of Pharmacy'') is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of chemistry in the life sciences. The journal was estab ...
''.
Friedrich Wöhler
Friedrich Wöhler () FRS(For) HonFRSE (31 July 180023 September 1882) was a German chemist known for his work in inorganic chemistry, being the first to isolate the chemical elements beryllium and yttrium in pure metallic form. He was the firs ...
, Ordinary Professor of Chemistry at Göttingen University, had coca leaves imported to Germany by
Karl von Scherzer
Karl Ritter von Scherzer (sometimes written Carl; 1 May 1821 in Vienna – 19 February 1903 in Görz) was an Austrian explorer, diplomat and natural scientist.
Biography
He began his working life as a printer. After inheriting a fortune, Scher ...
, a member of the Austrian
Novara
Novara (, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It is ...
expedition, and he gave those leaves to Niemann, his graduate student, to analyze. In 1859, Niemann isolated
cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...
from coca leaves and then developed an improved purification process.
He extracted the primary
alkaloid
Alkaloids are a class of basic, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral and even weakly acidic properties. Some synthetic compounds of similar ...
and named the ingredient "cocaine"–as with other alkaloids its name carried the “-ine”
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
(from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''-ina'').
He wrote of the alkaloid's “colourless transparent prisms” and said that, “Its solutions have an alkaline reaction, a bitter taste, promote the flow of saliva and leave a peculiar numbness, followed by a sense of cold when applied to the tongue.” He published his finding in 1860 in his dissertation titled ''
Über eine neue organische Base in den Cocablättern
''On a New Organic Base in the Coca Leaves'' is an 1860 dissertation written by Albert Niemann. Its title in German is ''Über eine neue organische Base in den Cocablättern''. The piece describes, in detail, how Niemann isolated cocaine, a cryst ...
'' (''On a New Organic Base in the Coca Leaves''). This dissertation earned him his Ph.D. and was published in 1860 in the journal ''Archiv der Pharmazie''.
Mustard gas
During experiments with
ethylene
Ethylene (IUPAC name: ethene) is a hydrocarbon which has the formula or . It is a colourless, flammable gas with a faint "sweet and musky" odour when pure. It is the simplest alkene (a hydrocarbon with carbon-carbon double bonds).
Ethylene i ...
and
sulfur dichloride
Sulfur dichloride is the chemical compound with the formula . This cherry-red liquid is the simplest sulfur chloride and one of the most common, and it is used as a precursor to organosulfur compounds. It is a highly corrosive and toxic substance, ...
in 1860, Niemann produced
mustard gas
Mustard gas or sulfur mustard is a chemical compound belonging to a family of cytotoxic and blister agents known as mustard agents. The name ''mustard gas'' is technically incorrect: the substance, when dispersed, is often not actually a gas, b ...
. He was among the first to document its toxic effects,
but he might have not been the first to synthetize it.
In 1860 and almost in parallel to Niemann,
Frederick Guthrie
Frederick Guthrie FRS FRSE (15 October 1833 – 21 October 1886) was a British physicist and chemist and academic author.
He was the son of Alexander Guthrie, a London tradesman, and the younger brother of mathematician Francis Guthrie. Alon ...
reported the same reaction as Niemann.
Guthrie also noted the toxic properties of mustard gas at that time.
In 1860, Niemann described the properties of mustard gas as: ''Sie besteht darin, daß selbst die geringste Spur, die zufallig auf irgend eine Stelle der Haut kommt, anfangs zwar keinen Schrnerz hervorruft, nach Verlauf einiger Stunden aber eine Rötung derselben bewirkt und bis zum folgenden Tage eine Brandblase hervorbringt, die sehr lange eitert und außerordentlich schwer heilt , unter Hinterlassung starker Narben.'' (They are represented by the fact that, even traces brought into contact with the skin, while painless at first, result in a reddening of the skin after several hours, and in the following days produce blisters which fester and heal slowly and with great difficulty, leaving behind significant scarring.)
Death
Niemann died on 19 January 1861 in his hometown Goslar, reportedly of "suppuration of the lung". Niemann worked with
mustard gas
Mustard gas or sulfur mustard is a chemical compound belonging to a family of cytotoxic and blister agents known as mustard agents. The name ''mustard gas'' is technically incorrect: the substance, when dispersed, is often not actually a gas, b ...
since 1860 and exposure to it probably resulted in his death.
After his death, his colleague
Wilhelm Lossen
Wilhelm Clemens Lossen (8 May 1838 in Kreuznach – 29 October 1906 in Aachen) was a German chemist. He was the brother of geologist Karl August Lossen.
From 1857 he studied chemistry at the University of Giessen, then continued his educat ...
continued his investigations, and identified the
chemical formula
In chemistry, a chemical formula is a way of presenting information about the chemical proportions of atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound or molecule, using chemical element symbols, numbers, and sometimes also other symbols, ...
of cocaine in 1862.
References
External links
The rise and demise of coca and cocaine: As Licit Global ‘Commodity Chains’, 1860-1950(pdf)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Niemann, Albert
1834 births
1861 deaths
19th-century German chemists
University of Göttingen alumni
Cocaine
People from Goslar