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to his memory (one of the “Historic sites of chemistry” of the German Chemical
Society GDCh) were posed in Heidelberg at his former laboratory.
The German Society for Physical Chemistry is named after Bunsen (Deutsche
Bunsen-Gesellschaft für Physikalische Chemie), honouring his importance for
physical chemistry.
Robert Bunsen never married, and despite his many honours and worldwide
estimation, he complained after his retirement feeling lonely [
32
].
For more details to his life and work, see [
66
-
71
].
Hermann F
ehling
(born 6 June 1811, Lübeck; died 1 July 1885, Stuttgart)
Son of a merchant, he began with an apprenticeship for pharmacy in Lübeck
and Bremen, followed by a study of natural sciences (mainly chemistry) at the
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg from 1835 to 1837. As an assistant of
Gmelin, he graduated with a PhD in 1837 in Heidelberg and became the assis-
tant of Liebig in Giessen. After working some time with Dumas in Paris, he
became the Professor for technical chemistry at the
Vereinigte Kunst
-,
Real
-
und
Gewerbeschule
(Polytechnic College) Stuttgart, where he took over responsibili-
ties in numerous academic and public commissions. His scientific activities aimed
mainly to the development of volumetric methods for technical purposes (analysis
of foodstuffs, materials and mineral waters).
The Fehling reagent (aqueous solution of copper sulphate, sodium carbonate,
tartaric acid and potassium hydroxide) for the detection of glucose was only a
slight modification of an earlier proposal of A.C. Becquerel [
32
,
72
], who pub-
lished it for the qualitative detection of sugar. Fehling (for portrait, see Fig.
3.7
)
found the relation of 1 molecule glucose to 1 atom copper, and by his publication
[
73
], he became well known for this reagent.
Fig. 3.7
Portrait of Hermann
Fehling (1811-1885)
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