Background
Otto Linné Erdmann was born on April 11, 1804, in Dresden, Germany. He was the son of Karl Gottfried Erdmann, the physician who introduced vaccination into Saxony.
1846
Saxon Academy of Sciences, Karl-Tauchnitz-Straße 1, 04107 Leipzig, German
Erdmann was a member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences.
University of Leipzig, Augustusplatz 10, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
In 1822 Erdmann entered the University of Leipzig, where his interest in chemistry was stimulated by L. W. Gilbert, professor of physics.
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Alfons-Goppel-Straße 11, 80539 München, German
Erdmann was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Otto Linné Erdmann was born on April 11, 1804, in Dresden, Germany. He was the son of Karl Gottfried Erdmann, the physician who introduced vaccination into Saxony.
In 1820, after apprenticeship to a pharmacist, Erdmann studied medicine at the Medical-Surgical Academy in Dresden; in 1822 he entered the University of Leipzig, where his interest in chemistry was stimulated by L. W. Gilbert, professor of physics.
After graduating in medicine in 1824 and qualifying as a university lecturer in 1825, Erdmann devoted the rest of his life to chemistry. In 1827, after a year directing a nickel mine and foundry at Hasserode, he was appointed extraordinary professor, and in 1830 professor, of technical chemistry at Leipzig, where he established his reputation as a teacher and researcher. Erdmann was Rektor Magnifiais of Leipzig from 1848 to 1849, and from 1835 he was a director, and eventually chairman, of the Leipzig-Dresden Railway Company. He devoted much time to the improvement of the cultural facilities and technological prosperity of the city of Leipzig.
The Saxon government was persuaded by Erdmann to build chemical laboratories at the university; and after they were opened in 1842. Erdmann was able to compete with Liebig at Giessen and attract large numbers of students, many of whom achieved eminence, e.g., C. F. Gerhardt. He toured Germany and France in 1836 in order to meet other chemists, including his future collaborator, R. F. Marchand. Erdmann visited England in 1842, and he was a voluble spokesman for noninterference with the individual chemist’s right to freedom of choice between atomic and equivalent weights at the important Karlsruhe Conference in 1860.
Erdmann’s researches, which spanned mineralogical, industrial, inorganic, and organic chemistry, were primarily descriptive and analytical. In organic chemistry, between 1840 and 1841 (simultaneously with Laurent, who corrected him), he investigated the nature of indigotin and prepared a number of derivatives that were important later, including isatin and tetrachloro-p-benzoquinone. He subsequently investigated and isolated hematoxylin from logwood and euxanthic acid from Indian yellow.
Erdmann’s confusion over the empirical formula of isatin led him skeptically to redetermine the atomic weight of carbon in 1841. In collaboration with Marchand he supported Dumas and Stas in lowering its atomic weight from Berzelius’ value of 76.43 (O = 100) to 75.08.7 Subsequently, until the death of Marchand in 1850, they made a number of accurate redeterminations. In most cases, they obtained values significantly different front those established by Berzelius and sufficiently close to whole numbers to persuade them that there might be some truth in Prout’s hypothesis that atomic weights were multiples of a common unit. There followed a dispute with Berzelius, who abhorred Multiplenfieber, in which Erdmann maintained an empirical position that chemists should be guided only by accurate experiments.
Erdmann was a member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He was also a prominent Freemason.
To the younger German generation, Erdmann came to typify the stereotyped, unimaginative chemistry against which they rebelled so passionately and fruitfully.
Erdmann was married to Clara Jungnickel, by whom he had three sons and a daughter.