Albert Niemann (chemist)

Albert Friedrich Emil Niemann ( born May 20, 1834 in Goslar, † January 19, 1861 in Goslar ) was a German chemist.

Life

Niemann was born the son of a teacher in 1834 in Goslar. From 1852 he studied with Friedrich Wöhler in Göttingen chemistry and later became his assistant. After the Austrian adventurer Karl von Scherzer 1859 a bale coca leaves brought from the Novara expedition at the request Wöhler in Göttingen, isolated Niemann 1860 as the first cocaine in crystalline form and gave it its name. For more accurate studies, he noted, among other things, that it melts at 98 ° C and on further heating in salt and benzoic acid and methanol and ecgonine decays. Niemann could not complete his studies and had to return to his family in Goslar, where he also died a short time later seriously ill. Probable cause of death was poisoning with mustard gas, with which Niemann dealt with extensively before his cocaine studies. At its birth and death house in Goslar is a memorial plaque to him.

After his death, his colleague Wilhelm Lossen (1838-1906) continued his work on and certain 1862 the empirical formula of cocaine.

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