The Beilstein database is the largest

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...

in the field of

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, ...

, in which compounds are uniquely identified by their Beilstein Registry Number. The database covers the scientific literature from 1771 to the present and contains experimentally validated information on millions of

chemical reaction A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the IUPAC nomenclature for organic transformations, chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Classically, chemical reactions encompass changes that only involve the pos ...

s and substances from original

scientific publication : ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.'' Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scient ...

s. The electronic database was created from ''Handbuch der Organischen Chemie'' (''Beilstein's Handbook of Organic Chemistry''), founded by

Friedrich Konrad Beilstein Friedrich Konrad Beilstein (russian: Фёдор Фёдорович Бейльштейн) (17 February 183818 October 1906), was a Russian chemist and founder of the famous ''Handbuch der organischen Chemie'' (''Handbook of Organic Chemistry''). T ...

in 1881, but has appeared online under a number of different names, including Crossfire Beilstein. Since 2009, the content has been maintained and distributed by

Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as '' The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', ...

Information Systems in Frankfurt under the product name "

Reaxys Reaxys is a web-based tool for the retrieval of chemistry information and data from published literature, including journals and patents. The information includes chemical compounds, chemical reactions, chemical properties, related bibliographic d ...

". The database contains information on reactions, substances, structures and properties. Up to 350 fields containing chemical and physical data (such as

melting point The melting point (or, rarely, liquefaction point) of a substance is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depen ...

, refractive index etc.) are available for each substance. References to the literature in which the reaction or substance data appear are also given. The Beilstein content made available through

is complemented by information drawn from Gmelin (which gives access to the

Gmelin Database Gmelin may refer to: * Gmelin's test, a chemical test * Gmelin database, a German handbook/encyclopedia of inorganic compounds initiated by Leopold Gmelin People * Carl Christian Gmelin (1762–1837), German botanist, author of ''Flora Badens ...

), a very large repository of organometallic and

inorganic In chemistry, an inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bonds, that is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as ''inorganic chemist ...

information, as well as by information drawn from the

Patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

Chemistry Database. The Reaxys registered trademark and the database itself are owned and protected by Elsevier Properties SA and used under license.

History

Beilstein was founded as German-language standard reference work for organic chemistry was intended to supplement the content of the

Chemisches Zentralblatt ''Chemisches Zentralblatt'' is the first and oldest abstracts journal published in the field of chemistry. It covers the chemical literature from 1830 to 1969 and describes therefore the "birth" of chemistry as science, in contrast to alchemy. The ...

. In light of the leading role of German chemistry in international science, Beilstein's handbook quickly became renowned as a standard reference throughout the world. The first edition of his "Handbuch der organischen Chemie" appeared in two volumes in 1881 and 1883, referencing 15,000 compounds in about 2,200 pages. The second edition appeared in three volumes from 1885 to 1889 and 4,080 pages, and from 1892 to 1899 came the third edition in 4 volumes and 6,844 pages. In 1896, the continuation of the handbook was placed in the care of the German Chemical Society, which first published the supplementary volumes of the 3rd edition and, from 1918, the fourth edition. Starting with the 5th supplement, following the superseding of German by English as most relevant scientific language, the handbook appeared in English.''Brockhaus ABC Chemie'', VEB F. A. Brockhaus Verlag Leipzig 1965, S. 162.

In popular culture

* Isaac Asimov's short story " What's in a Name?" (1956) introduced the Beilstein ''Handbook of Organic Chemistry'' as an important plot element.

References

{{Reflist Chemical databases Organic chemistry Bibliographic databases and indexes

History

In popular culture

See also

References