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Rudolf Fittig
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Rudolf Fittig

German chemist
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Quick Facts
Born:
Dec. 6, 1835, Hamburg [Germany]
Died:
Nov. 19, 1910, Strassburg, Ger. [now Strasbourg, France] (aged 74)

Rudolf Fittig (born Dec. 6, 1835, Hamburg [Germany]—died Nov. 19, 1910, Strassburg, Ger. [now Strasbourg, France]) was a German organic chemist who contributed vigorously to the flowering of structural organic chemistry during the late 19th century.

After studying for his Ph.D. (1856-58) under Friedrich Wöhler at the University of Göttingen, Fittig was assistant to Wöhler, then became professor at Tübingen in 1869 and successor to Adolf von Baeyer at Strasbourg in 1876. He helped to edit Annalen der Chemie from 1895 to 1910.

He was one of the first to study the action of sodium on organic compounds, using that element in preparing pinacol, diphenyl, toluene, and many other substances. He discovered several aromatic compounds in coal tar, studied the reactions of unsaturated acids, and proposed the correct structures for the quinones.

Michael Faraday (L) English physicist and chemist (electromagnetism) and John Frederic Daniell (R) British chemist and meteorologist who invented the Daniell cell.
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