Georg Wander (11 August 1841 – 14 March 1897) was a German-Swiss chemist and industrialist.

Biography

Georg Wander studied chemistry in

Gießen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univers ...

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in three ...

and

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg ...

. In 1859 he became a member of the Corps Rhenania Gießen. In 1861 he joined the Corps Rhenania Tübingen. After receiving his doctorate, he was an assistant at the Institute of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the

University of Bern The University of Bern (german: Universität Bern, french: Université de Berne, la, Universitas Bernensis) is a university in the Swiss capital of Bern and was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the Canton of Bern. It is a compreh ...

from 1863 to 1865. He worked for 320 francs a month whilst studying at Bern. For comparison, a professor during that time would typically earn about 2,800 to even 3,200 francs per month. His colleagues in other facilities were almost getting doubled of what he was getting paid. In 1865 he became a partner in a mineral water factory (Sommer & Comp) in Bern, which he took over in 1867 and expanded into a chemical-technical and analytical laboratory. He mainly took part in producing tinctures, ointments, pastilles, oils, and refreshing beverages. From this laboratory emerged the later

Wander AG Wander AG (officially: "WANDER AG") is a food producer that is owned by Associated British Foods and is based in Neuenegg (Canton of Bern, Switzerland). The company employs about 300 people in Switzerland. Its most well-known product is Ovomaltin ...

, which is known worldwide in particular due to the malt beverage

Ovomaltine Ovaltine (also known by its original name Ovomaltine) is a brand of milk flavoring product made with malt extract (except in the blue packaging in the United States), sugar (except in Switzerland), and whey. Some flavors also have cocoa. Ovaltin ...

. His successor as company leader was his son Albert Wander who was already helping in the work at this time. He spoke proudly about the Ovalmaltine product in this quote from 1869. Georg Wander's scientific and technical achievements included the gentle extraction of barley malt and its enrichment, for which he used

quinine Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to '' Plasmodium falciparum'' that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal le ...

, iron and lime in addition to other substances. Continuing into the 1890s he kept on making equipment such as spirit lamps and vacuum evaporaters with his son. In 1897 he died and a new product hit the shelves, Herbalpina herbal bonbons.

Bibliography

In total he has 12 works in 19 publications in 2 languages and 71 library holdings. He mostly wrote about the products he made and the chemical process involved with those. Books such as ''Über das Hesperidin einiger Pflanzen'' and ''Liebig : Vortrag gehalten ... im Schosse der Bernischen literarischen Gesellschaft, im Jahre 1896''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wander, Georg 1841 births 1897 deaths 19th-century German chemists Swiss industrialists 19th-century Swiss businesspeople University of Bern alumni People from Osthofen