Background
Alfred Stock was born on July 16, 1876, in Danzig, German Empire (present-day Gdansk, Poland). He was a son of a banking executive.
Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
In 1894, Alfred entered Humboldt University of Berlin, where he received a doctorate degree magna cum laude in 1899.
Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
In 1894, Alfred entered Humboldt University of Berlin, where he received a doctorate degree magna cum laude in 1899.
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1909
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1920
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1923
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1933
Alfred Stock was born on July 16, 1876, in Danzig, German Empire (present-day Gdansk, Poland). He was a son of a banking executive.
In his early years, Alfred studied at Friedrich-Werder grammar school in Berlin. As a schoolboy, he developed an early interest in science and earned scholarships, that allowed him to pursue a degree in chemistry at Humboldt University of Berlin, which he entered in 1894. Alfred chose to work at the chemical institute at the university, directed by Emil Fischer, but had to wait a year for space in the lab, which was overcrowded. He finally began his doctoral research in 1895 under the auspices of organic chemist Oscar Piloty.
During his summer breaks from the university, Stock worked in the private laboratory of the Dutch physical chemist Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff. It was there, that Stock carried out his first significant research in the areas of magnesium and oceanic salt deposits.
In 1899, after defending his dissertation about the quantitative separation of arsenic and antimony in the works of Emil Fischer, Stock received a doctorate degree magna cum laude.
In 1899, after graduation from Humboldt University of Berlin, Alfred spent a year in Paris, assisting the chemist Henri Moissan at the École Supérieure de Pharmacie, with the support of the Prussian Ministry of Culture. At Moissan’s laboratory, he first investigated compounds of silicon and boron, which were to occupy him throughout his career.
In 1900, Stock began his professional career, working for the next nine years as a laboratory assistant to Emil Fischer at the University of Berlin (present-day Humboldt University of Berlin). There, he investigated the preparation and characterization of such elements, as phosphorus, arsenic and antimony (a brittle, white metallic element). One result of Stock’s investigation was that he could clearly explain their reactions with hydrogen, sulfur and nitrogen. He also identified an unstable yellow form of antimony, and two new compounds of phosphorus: a polymeric hydride, which is a compound, including hydrogen and another element or group, and a nitride, which is a compound, including nitrogen and one other element. Stock’s research clarified misconceptions in scientific literature and established the existence of three of today’s four well-established phosphorus sulfides, which are organic compounds of phosphorous and sulfur.
It was also during these early years in Berlin, that symptoms, associated with Stock’s mercury poisoning, would begin surfacing. Headaches, dizziness and upper respiratory infections started plaguing Stock, while he was pioneering his work with a device, known as the vapor-tension thermometer. His success with the apparatus became well known throughout Germany and he later developed it into his tension-thermometer. Many years later, the work with the tension-thermometer was traced as the first of many sources of mercury poisoning, to which Stock was exposed during the course of his life.
In July, 1909, Stock was named a full professor and director of the present-day University of Wrocław. It was there, that he surpassed previous chemists' successes with his imaginative work with hydrocarbons, inorganic carbon compounds and the development of a high-vacuum apparatus, that allowed Stock to work with volatile and gaseous materials. The apparatus was later referred to as the Stock high-vacuum pump. He also envisioned at this time the possibility of developing the equivalent of organic chemistry’s carbon-based system around boron, an element, whose unanticipated potential he was just beginning to discover. His work with borohydrides, however, was interrupted with the outbreak of World War I. Stock was then charged with studying carbon subsulfide, an irritant, to determine its effectiveness as a war gas. The gas was never used, however, due to problems with polymerization, which is a chemical reaction, in which molecules combine to form larger molecules, that contain repeating structural units.
Stock left Breslau (present-day Wrocław) in April, 1916, to continue his research and was appointed a director of Richard Willstaetter’s laboratory at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut for Chemistry (present-day Kaiser Wilhelm Society) in Berlin. It was not long, however, before the military moved in and took over the institute. Since his still undiagnosed physical problems (including, by that time, an acute loss of hearing) kept him from serving in the military, he and his staff moved their equipment to the University of Berlin (present-day Humboldt University of Berlin), so that they could continue their work.
When the war ended, he returned to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut for Chemistry and continued to study silicon and boron hydrides. His work yielded a number of halogen and alkyl derivatives, which, in turn, led to the discovery of new compounds, such as silyl amines and silicones. In the process, Stock developed a chemistry, based on silicon; this was similar to his work with boron at Breslau. At the suggestion of Hans Goldschmidt, Stock also collaborated on the production of metallic beryllium. This substance had become a worthwhile element to pursue, because it is a metal, which had possible applications in industry, so a beryllium study group was formed. By 1940, their new technique for making the material yielded enough beryllium to significantly reduce the market value per kilogram, thus increasing the element’s cost-effectiveness in scientific experiments.
Stock’s unexplained medical problems kept growing worse. Besides headaches, vertigo, respiratory infections and deafness, he now also suffered frequent numbness. None of these symptoms was alleviated by medical treatment. In 1923, he suffered virtually total hearing and memory loss, and he almost didn’t survive the winter of 1924. At that time, many scientists in addition to Stock were unknowingly being exposed to mercury poisoning. It wasn’t until he saw similar symptoms in a colleague, that Stock finally realized the volatility of this odorless substance. He began researching mercury poisoning, often experimenting on himself. As a result of his investigations, Stock published several articles, outlining the dangers of mercury and offered up numerous precautionary guidelines for working with the substance.
It was a difficult decision, but the opportunity to establish a new mercury-free laboratory convinced Stock to leave the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut for Chemistry in 1926 to become a director of the Chemistry Department at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe (present-day Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). During the next decade of his life, Stock’s efforts were devoted exclusively to the study of mercury poisoning and borohydrides. His concepts and working models of laboratory rooms, equipped with extensive safety precautions, were sought after by scientists from around the world. Further experiments proved, that inhaled mercury vapor was much more dangerous, than ingested mercury, because the vapor, entering through the nose, moved more quickly into the pituitary gland, where it wreaked havoc on the body.
During his tenure at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe, Stock also pioneered a teaching method, which used reflected light to project chemical objects on a large screen. He worked with his lecture assistant, Hans Ramser, and with Carl Zeiss Jena to create this apparatus, which was called an epidiascope.
In 1927, Alfred was the president of the Association of German Chemists in Paris, and later, from February 6, 1936 till May 7, 1938, he headed the German Chemical Society. Also, he was a guest professor at Cornell University for several months in 1932 under the George Fisher Baker Nonresident Lectureship in Chemistry.
The last ten years of Stock’s life were nearly unbearable, both physically and professionally. His mercury poisoning became debilitating and interfered with his work. His political differences with the Nazi government were increasing. In 1936, at the age of sixty, he asked for his retirement from the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe. Then, Alfred returned with his family to Berlin, where he continued to trace and validate the chemical path of mercury poisoning. By 1940, movement became difficult as he developed hardening of the muscles.
In 1943, Stock relinquished his laboratories, because they were needed for the war effort. As the Russians were approaching in 1945, Stock and his wife sought a shelter with an old friend, Ernst Kuss, in Dessau. The Stocks finally found refuge in a barracks in Aken, a small city on the Elbe. After a long illness, Alfred died in the early morning on August 12, 1946.
Alfred Stock was a prominent German chemist, who made significant contributions to chemistry and designed several important chemical instruments, such as high-vacuum apparatus, which was later referred to as the Stock high-vacuum pump. Also, Stock gained prominence for his pioneering research on the hydrides of boron and silicon, coordination chemistry, mercury and mercury poisoning.
In his later years, Alfred developed precautionary guidelines for other scientists to help them avoid suffering from mercury poisoning.
The German Chemical Society's Alfred-Stock Memorial Prize is named after him.
In 1933, Stock was made a member of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party). Also, he was an antisemite.
Quotations:
"All statements about the hydrides of boron earlier than 1912, when Stock began to work upon them, are untrue."
"The vacuum-apparatus requires that its manipulators constantly handle considerable amounts of mercury. Mercury is a strong poison, particularly dangerous, because of its liquid form and noticeable volatility even at room temperature. Its poisonous character has been rather lost sight of during the present generation. My co-workers and myself found from personal experience, confirmed on many sides, when published, that protracted stay in an atmosphere, charged with only 1/100 of the amount of mercury, required for its saturation, sufficed to induce chronic mercury poisoning. This first reveals itself as an affection of the nerves, causing headaches, numbness, mental lassitude, depression and loss of memory; such are very disturbing to one, engaged in intellectual occupations."
Alfred married Clara Venzky in August, 1906. Their marriage produced two daughters.
