Polish chemistry in the century of the discov - ery of polonium and radium

Chemistry International, 1998, Vol. 20, No. 5 sor of Physics at Vienna, Lvov and Cracow universities developed the theory of fluctuations in gases and, independently of Einstein, proposed the theory of Brownian motion. Subsequent experimental confirmation of the Einstein–Smoluchowski equation became one of the final proofs in the kinetic theory of matter. Great achievements in organic chemistry were made by Alfred Freund (1835–1892, first synthesis of cyclopropane, 1881), Bronislaw Radziszewski (1838–1931, Radziszewski’s conversion of nitriles to amides with H 2O2 in alkaline solution, 1890), Stanislaw Kostanecki (1860–1910, synthesis of flavonoids, 1899) and Stefan Niementowski (1866–1925, synthesis of 4oxoquinazolines, 1895). In Cracow, Leon Marchlewski (1869–1946) was one of the founders in the field of chlorophyll chemistry. During the inter-war period (1918– 1939), the study of organic chemistry developed at the chemistry departments of universities and technical universities. The particularly active centres were in Warsaw, Cracow and Lvov. From that period, the investigations performed by Tadeusz Milobêdzki (1873–1959, organophosphorus chemistry), Wiktor Lampe (1875–1962, curcumin and light-sensitive dyes), Karol Dziewonski (1876–1943, work on synthetic dyes, decacyclene and other polycyclic aromatics), R. Malachowski (1887–1944, carbonyl cyanide) and Edward Sucharda (1891–1947, chemistry of pyridine) deserve to be mentioned. Among the Polish scientists who were working in Warsaw, two names deserve to be mentioned here: Jakub Natanson (1832–1884), who was the author of one of the earliest syntheses of artificial dyes (fuchsine), and Jozef Boguski (1853–1933), a pioneer in the field of chemical kinetics who also proposed the widely known equation which describes the kinetics of the dissolution of solids in liquids. At the same time, many talented Poles had been working in different laboratories abroad. Marceli Nencki (1847–1901), who worked in Russia and Switzerland, was the author of some important publications in the field of organic chemistry and biochemistry. He greatly contributed to an establishment of the structure of heme, obtained hemine from hemoglobine, and studied the mechanisms of formation of urea in animal organisms. Stanislaw Kostanecki, who was also working in Switzerland, was renowned for his work on the structure and synthesis of flavonoids (Kostanecki synthesis). Bohdan Szyszkowski (1873–1931) published important papers on electrochemistry and surface chemistry. Polish chemistry in the century of the discovery of polonium and radium by Maria Sklodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie