Everything about Arthur Eichengr N totally explained
Arthur Eichengrün (
August 13,
1867 -
December 23,
1949) was a
German chemist, best known through a controversy about who invented
Aspirin.
Life
Arthur Eichengrün was born in
Aachen as the son of a
Jewish cloth merchant and manufacturer. In
1885, he took up studies in
chemistry at the
University of Aachen, later moved to
Berlin, and finally to
Erlangen, where he received a
Doctoral degree in
1890.
In
1896, he joined
Bayer, working in the pharmaceutical laboratory. In
1908, he quit Bayer and founded his own pharmaceutical factory, the
Cellon-Werke in Berlin. His company was "
Aryanized" by the
Nazis in
1938.
In
1943, he was arrested and sentenced to four months in prison for having failed to include the word "Israel" in his company's name. In May
1944, he was arrested again on the same charge and deported to the
concentration camp Theresienstadt, where he spent 14 months until the end of
World War II in Europe.
After the liberation, he returned to Berlin, but moved to
Bad Wiessee in
Bavaria in
1948, where he died the following year at the age of 82.
Work
Aspirin
Eichengrün has made his name through numerous inventions such as processes for synthesizing chemical compounds. He held 47 patents. Arguably, however, he's best known through the controversy around the question who invented
Aspirin.
The standard story credits
Felix Hoffmann, a young Bayer chemist, with the invention of Aspirin in
1897. (It should be noted, though, that
impure acetylsalicylic acid (ASA, the active compound of Aspirin) had been synthesized already in
1853 by
French chemist
Charles Frédéric Gerhardt; the 1897 process developed at Bayer was the first to produce
pure ASA that could be used for medical purposes.)
In
1949, Arthur Eichengrün published a paper in which he claimed to have planned and directed the synthesis of Aspirin along with the synthesis of several related compounds. He also claimed to be responsible for Aspirin's initial surreptitious clinical testing. Finally, he claimed that Hoffmann's role was restricted to the initial lab synthesis using his (Eichengrün's) process and nothing more.
The Eichengrün version was ignored by historians and chemists until 1999, when Walter Sneader of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the
University of Strathclyde in
Glasgow re-examined the case and came to the conclusion that indeed Eichengrün's account was convincing and correct and that Eichengrün deserved credit for the invention of Aspirin. Bayer promptly denied this theory in a press release, claiming that the invention of Aspirin was due to Hoffmann.
As of 2004, the controversy is still open: while Sneader's version has been widely reported, there are no independent second sources supporting either version.
Protargol
In 1897,
Protargol, a silver salt of a protein mixture, developed by Eichengrün at Bayer, was introduced as a new drug against
gonorrhea. Protargol stayed in use until
sulfa drugs and then
antibiotics became available in the 1940's.
Further Information
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