Growth into a Scientific Discipline: The Nineteenth Century - Important Figures of Analytical Chemistry from Germany in Brief Biographies - page 65

Johann Peter G riess (born 6 September, 1829 Kirchhosbach near Kassel, died
30 August, 1888, Bournemouth/England)
Peter Griess' education and studies were uncommonly widespread. He vis-
ited an agricultural private school and a high school of trade and craftsman-
ship ( Höhere Gewerbeschule ) in Kassel, and after a short time in military
( Husarenregiment in Hessen ) he began to study chemistry among a whole variety
of other subjects (philology, psychology, botany, medicine) in Hofgeismar, Kassel,
Jena, Marburg, Munich. At first he enrolled at the Universität Jena in 1850, soon
changing to Marburg (1851-1853). Disciplinary difficulties required him to move
to Munich (Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität) in 1853, where he visited Liebig's
lectures. He returned to Marburg (Hermann Kolbe) in 1854 and studied solely
chemistry. He left the university, without a final examination, for employment at
a chemical factory in Offenbach/Main, but returned soon back to the Philipps-
Universität Marburg to work with Kolbe.
In Marburg, Griess discovered the diazotization of aromatic amines by nitrous
acid (at first by infusion of nitrous gases into an aqueous solution of picraminic
acid) [ 128 , 129 ]. This reaction in its generalized version—the diazotization
by nitrous acid and aromatic amines—achieved his main scientific interest for
lifetime together with the production of azo dyes by coupling the diazonium com-
pounds. His detection reaction for nitrites based on alpha-naphthylamine and sul-
fanilic acid (1879) obtained analytical relevance as the first organic reagent at all.
(Nevertheless, this reagent is also cited Lunge's reagent after the famous Professor
of Chemical Technology Georg Lunge (1839-1923); see [ 124 ]).
Hermann Kolbe recommended Peter Griess to August Wilhelm von Hofmann
in London (Laboratory of the Royal College of Chemistry), who—although at first
somewhat disappointed by his first encounter with the young man—invited him to
work in London. There he was asked at first to contradict rumours about strych-
nine causing the bitter taste of English beers at this time, and Griess continued the
association with beer brewing until his death.
Although the structure of the new class of organic compounds remained
still unknown, Griess synthesized several azo dyes and communicated with
other chemists opening the era of synthetic dyestuffs (e.g. Heinrich Caro, Carl
Alexander von Martius, Otto Nikolaus Witt), as well as with the Badische Anilin -
und Soda - Fabrik BASF [ 130 ]). He obtained no benefits from his inventions,
except by selling several patents for azo dyes.
Griess (for portrait see Fig. 3.12 ) was hired as a chemist by the brewery Samuel
Allsopp and sons in Burton-upon Trent, but found opportunity to continue his
research on azo compounds.
Azo dyes also found analytical use for the detection of aromatic amines in
paper and thin layer chromatography, mainly by the Bratton - Marshall reagent ,
N-(1-naphthyl)-ethylenediamine dihydrochloride [ 131 ]. Although this reagent
probably was an incidental finding, it was certainly one of the most widely used
and cited organic reagents at all, although numerous other compounds had been
equally suitable and found efficient, if there had ever been a systematical research
and comparative evaluation (own observation [ 132 ]).