Fritzsche, Julius Fedorovich

Julius Fedorovich Fritzsche (1808–1871) - chemist and naturalist.

Julius Fedorovich Fritzsche
him. Carl Julius Fritzsche
Date of Birth	October 29, 1808 ( 1808-10-29 )
Place of Birth	Neustadt
Date of death	June 8, 1871 ( 1871-06-08 ) (62 years old)
Place of death	Dresden
A country
Scientific field	pharmaceutics , botany , chemistry
Alma mater
Academic rank	Academician of SPbAN

German. Received primary education at home. At the age of 14, he entered his uncle's pharmacy in Dresden, then went to Berlin, where he served as a laboratory assistant at Helming's pharmacy. Pharmaceutical activities prepared him for the post of assistant in the chemistry laboratory of Berlin professor Mitcherlich , under whose leadership Fritzsche's increased penchant for the natural sciences ; he began attending university lectures and soon published his first research in botany : “Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Pollen”, and in 1833 he presented the dissertation “De plantarum polline” and received a Ph.D. He introduced the terms used to describe pollen : “ intina ” and “ exina ” ^[1] .

Soon, his scientific research turned to the field of chemistry: "On the combination of calcium chloride with acetic acid and oxalic acid lime." Having moved to Russia in 1834, he published his works in the editions of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences , which he was elected adjunct in 1838. After 6 years, he received the title of extraordinary, and in 1852 - an ordinary academician. He began his scientific career in Russia by placing in 1836 a set of his observations on pollen in the academic Memoires des Savants etrangers, under the title: Ueber den Pollen. He is the author of over 60 scientific papers, most of them belong to the field of organic chemistry .

Starting in the late 1830s with the study of derivatives of uric acid and nitrous and nitric anhydrides , he went on to study derivatives of indigo . In 1841, he obtained aniline by heating indigo with a solution of potassium hydroxide and called it “aniline”. He studied the alkaloids contained in the southern Russian steppe plant, called the steppe ruta (Peganum harmala), and discovered in its seeds two alkaloids: harmaline and harmine .

In the 1860s he worked on the study of hydrocarbons . Of the series of discoveries made by Fritzsche, the most curious are: elucidating the nature of murexide , which is an ammonia salt of purple acid unknown in the free state, the discovery of the decomposition of ordinary amido-benzoic and anthranilic acid into aniline and carbonic acid , the discovery of the isomerism of mononitrophenols , etc.

He was a member of the commission under the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the study and arrangement of Caucasian mineral waters , the analyzes of which were made by him and a chemist at the medical department. In 1865, together with academician N.I. Zinin, he set up an extensive chemical laboratory at the Academy.