''Chemisches Zentralblatt'' is the first and oldest abstracts
journal
A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to:
*Bullet journal, a method of personal organization
*Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period
*Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...
published in the field of
chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
. It covers the chemical literature from 1830 to 1969 and describes therefore the "birth" of chemistry as
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
, in contrast to
alchemy
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...
. The information contained in this German journal is comparable with the content of the leading source of chemical information
Chemical Abstracts Service
CAS (formerly Chemical Abstracts Service) is a division of the American Chemical Society. It is a source of chemical information. CAS is located in Columbus, Ohio, United States.
Print periodicals
''Chemical Abstracts'' is a periodical index tha ...
(CAS), which started publishing abstracts in English in 1907.
''Chemisches Zentralblatt'' was founded as ''Pharmaceutisches Centralblatt'' by
Gustav Theodor Fechner
Gustav Theodor Fechner (; ; 19 April 1801 – 18 November 1887) was a German physicist, philosopher, and experimental psychologist. A pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics (techniques for measuring the mind), he inspired ...
[M. Pflücke:'' Das Chemische Zentralblatt 125 Jahre alt'', Angew. Chem. ''66'' (1954) 537-541, DOI: :10.1002/ange.19540661708.] and published by Leopold Voß in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
[R. Willstätter: ''Zur Hundertjahrfeier des Chemischen Zentralblattes'', Angew. Chem. ''42'' (1925) 1049-1052, DOI: :10.1002/ange.19290424502.] in 1830. In the first year, 544 pages containing 400 abstracts were published, reporting all relevant research results in
pharmaceutical chemistry
Medicinal or pharmaceutical chemistry is a scientific discipline at the intersection of chemistry and pharmacy involved with designing and developing pharmaceutical drugs. Medicinal chemistry involves the identification, synthesis and developme ...
. In the following 20 years the relevance of chemistry grew so much that in 1850 the title changed in ''Chemisch-Pharmazeutisch Zentralblatt'', and in 1856 it became ''Chemisches Zentralblatt''.
In 1969, after 140 years the expenses for the collection of primary literature in many languages and the production of abstracts were too high and the publication of ''Chemisches Zentralblatt ceased''.
[Christian Weiske:'' Das Chemische Zentralblatt – ein Nachruf'', '']Chemische Berichte
''Chemische Berichte'' (usually abbreviated as ''Ber.'' or ''Chem. Ber.'') was a German-language scientific journal of all disciplines of chemistry founded in 1868. It was one of the oldest scientific journals in chemistry, until it merged with ...
'' ''106'' (1973) I−XVI, DOI: 10.1002/cber.19731060435
In these 140 years, scientific editors reported research progresses in chemistry with approximately 2 million abstracts, publishing over 650,000 pages. Additional 180,000 pages contain indexes such as index of authors, subject indexes, general indexes, register of patents, and formula register.
''Chemisches Zentralblatt'' was completely digitized b
''FIZ Chemie''in Berlin. ''FIZ Chemie'' scanned the entire work and developed a full text searchable database for the web. In addition the database can be purchased and integrated in
Intranets. The chemical software compan
InfoChem based in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
, developed an Internet-based database, th
''Chemisches Zentralblatt'' Structural Database This database provides access to the chemical content within the ''Chemisches Zentralblatt'' by performing
chemical structure
A chemical structure determination includes a chemist's specifying the molecular geometry and, when feasible and necessary, the electronic structure of the target molecule or other solid. Molecular geometry refers to the spatial arrangement of at ...
and substructure searches.
References
External links
FIZ ChemieInfoChem GmbH, part of Deepmatter''Chemisches Zentralblatt'' Structural DatabaseOnline access to earlier issues, US only
{{Authority control
Chemical databases
Chemistry books
History of chemistry