ZEISE, WILLIAM CHRISTOPHER

(b. Slagelse, Denmark, 15 October 1789; d. Copenhagen, Denmark, 12 November 1847)

chemistry.

The son of Friedrich Zeise a pharmacist, and Johanna Helena Hammond, Zeise developed an interest in the natural sciences while attending secondary school, which he left in 1805 without graduating. He then was admitted to a pharmacy in Copenhagen-the customary way in Denmark of beginning the study of the natrual sciences; the pharmacist for whom he worked was extraordinary professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, After a few months poor health obliged Zeise to return to the family pharmacy in Slagelse. Lavoisier’s conceptsw was so great that by 1806 he had rearranged his father’s pharmacy according to the antiphlogistic nomenclature, officially introduced in the Danish pharmacopoeia the previous year.

After returning to Copenhagen in 1806, Zeise lived with Oersted and his family. Oersted, who had recently become extraordinary professor of physics and chemistry at Ciophenhagen, appointed Zeise his lecture assistant. In 1809 he began the study of medicine, physics, and chemistry; and in 1815 he graduated with a degree in pharmacy. The following year he received his master’s degree, and in 1817 he defined his doctoral dissertation, on the action of alkalies on organic substances.

Zeise visited chemical laboratories in Göttingen and Paris in 1818 and in 1819 returned to Copenhagen, where, under Oersted’s influence, he established one of the first laboratories in Europe for analytical and organic chemistry. In 1822 he became extraordinary professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen and from 1829 until his death was professor of organic chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute of Copenhagen, which had been established on Oersted’s initiative. In 1824 he was elected a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences.

Zeise’s investigation of organic sulfur compounds led to the discovery of a new class of organic compounds that he named xanthogenates (usually called xanthates), because they were isolated as yellow potassium salts in 1823. Other classes of sulfur compounds that he discovered include the thioalcohols (thiols), in 1833, for which he coined the name mercaptan because they form insoluable mercury salts (corpus mercurium captans) and the sulfides (thioethers), in 1836.

Zeise’s work on organic platinum compounds in the early 1830’s involved him in the controversy between Dumas and Liebig. Zeise believed that his own elemental analysis of these compounds supported Dumas’s etherin theory and his rules of substitution, but Liebig considered Zeise’s analysis to be incorrect. Vehemently objecting to Liebig’s insinuations, Zeise repeated the analysis and completely verified the composition as first established. Curiously, his investigations of mercaptans and sulfides decided the dispute between Liebig and the French chemists in Liebig’s favor.

Zeise belongs to the group of organic chemists who laid the foundations of scientific organic chemistry in the first half of the nineteenth century. He also studied the composition of the products obtained by the dry distillation of tobacco and tobacco smoke (1843) and undertook one of the earliest investigations of carotene (1846).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. A complete bibliography of Zeise’s writings isincluded in Veibel (see below); see also the Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers VI,494–496. His books include Udførlig Fremstilling af chemiens Hovedladomme, såavel i thoretisk som i praktisk Henseende (Copenhagen, 1829); and Haandbog i de organiske Stoffers almindelige Chemie (Copenhagen, 1847).

Among his memoirs are “Om Svovelkulstoffets Forbindelser med Æskene,” in Oversigt over det K.Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Forhandlinger (1821-1822), 12–13, and (1822-1823), 10–16; “Die X anthogensä;ure nebst einigen Producten und Verbindungen derselben,” in Journal für Chemie und Physik, 36 (1822), 1–67; “Forsøg over Virkningen mellem Chlorplatin og viinaand, “in Oversigt…Forhandlinger(1830-1831), 24–25; “Wirkung des Platinchlorids auf Alkohol und daraus hervogehende Produkte,” in Journal für Chemie und Physik, 62 (1831), 393–441, and 63 (1831), 121–135; also in Annalen der Physik21 (1831), 497–541; “Nye undersøgelser af Svovelforbindelser,” in Oversigt …Forhandlinger (1833-1834), 9–16; “Über das Mercaptan,” in Annalen der physik31 (1834), 369–431; “Mercaptanet, med Bemærkninger over nogle andre nye Producter af Svovelvinsuyresaltene, “in Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs naturvidenskabelige og mathematiske Afhandligner 4th ser., 6 (1837), 1–70 “Nye Undersøgelser over det braendbare Chlorplatin,” ibid., 333–356; “Undersøgelser over Producterne af Tobakkens tørre Destillation og om Tobaksrøgens chemiske Beskaffenhed,” in Oversigt …Forhandlinger(1843), 13–17; “Über die Produkte der trockenen Destillation des Tabaks und die Bestandtheile des Tabakrauches,” in Journal für praktische Chemie, 29 (1843), 383–395; and “Beretning om nogle Forsøg over Carotinet,” in Oversigt …Forhandlinger (1847), 101–103.

II. Secondary Literature. See the obituary in Oversigt over det K.Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Forhandlinger(1848), 19–30; and Stig Veibel, Kemien i Danmark, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1939-1943), 1, 155–160, 180–188, and II, 488–494, with complete bibliography.

Stig Veibel