Treat Baldwin Johnson

Background

Johnson was born on March 29, 1875, in Bethany, Connecticut, the eldest of the three sons and a daughter (who died in infancy) of Dwight Lauren Johnson and Harriet Adeline (Baldwin) Johnson. His forebears were early English settlers, successive generations of whom had lived in the vicinity of New Haven. His father was a typical farmer.

Education

Johnson was growing up in a community where few had progressed beyond elementary schooling. Johnson, being both intelligent and ambitious, set out to acquire a better education. He attended the local ungraded country school and then the high school in nearby Ansonia, making a good record. In 1894 he entered the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University, from which he received the Ph. B. in chemistry in 1898. In that same year he entered graduate school, published his first scientific paper, and was appointed laboratory assistant in chemistry, a position he held until 1901. He obtained the Ph. D. in organic chemistry in 1901, by which time he had published six more papers.

Career

Johnson was the author of 358 papers and was nationally known for his researches in pyrimidine chemistry and the chemistry of the tubercle bacillus. The biological importance of pyrimidines had only recently been disclosed when Johnson began his studies at Yale. Beginning in 1893 Albrecht Kossel and his students in Germany discovered that the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) present in animal and plant cells contained the pyrimidines cytosine, thymine, and uracil. Kossel proposed structural formulas for the pyrimidines, the proof of which depended on their synthesis. Henry L. Wheeler, who was also at Yale, developed a new method of synthesis for pyrimidines, using the condensation reaction of pseudothioureas with beta-keto esters. He had succeeded in synthesizing thymine and uracil by this method when Johnson collaborated with him in the synthesis of cytosine. By the end of 1903 they had proved that all of Kossel's structural formulas were correct. Pyrimidine chemistry was Johnson's major scientific interest throughout his career. He developed synthetic methods for otherwise inaccessible pyrimidines, and by the 1930's an extensive literature, largely the achievement of Johnson and his students, existed on this subject, including sensitive tests for the quantitative determination and differentiation of the natural pyrimidines in nucleic acids.

In 1922 Johnson began an investigation of the tubercle bacillus for the National Tuberculosis Association, which provided funds and culture supplies of the bacterium. He isolated the purines and pyrimidines in the nucleic acids and in 1925 discovered the presence of 5-methylcytosine in the nucleic acid of the tubercle bacillus. His comprehensive study of the chemical composition of the bacillus, which included its proteins and liquids, enlarged the knowledge of the nucleic acid content of bacterial cells. Another area of interest, one that proved lucrative to Johnson, was the study of germicides and antiseptics, carried out in part with paid assistants at his private laboratory in Bethany (Bethwood Research Laboratory), which he had constructed in 1932. The results of these investigations led to fifteen patents assigned to Johnson and a number of his coworkers, dealing with medicinal products. In 1921 he found that the antiseptic strength of resorcinol substituted in the 4-position with alkyl groups increased with the molecular weight of the alkyl group. He developed a synthesis for substituted resorcinols that led to the commercial production of hexylresorcinol under patent rights with considerable profit to Johnson.

During World War I he was director of a laboratory at Yale, conducting research in the preparation of toxic organic substances for the Chemical Warfare Service. In 1918 Johnson established a fund for annual lectures by distinguished chemists at Yale, and he bequeathed $200, 000 to Yale, the income to be devoted to the support of original research in organic chemistry in the graduate school. He donated a library room in the Bethany community school in memory of his mother and father.

Johnson died on July 28, 1947, of a coronary occlusion at his Bethany home. He was buried in Westville Cemetery, New Haven.

Achievements

• Johnson is best remembered for his scientific contribution in the area of synthetic organic chemistry, especially as it related to biologically important materials.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Papers on pyrimidines

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Theories of Organic Chemistry

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Fun with Gilbert chemistry

Religion

Johnson was active in civic affairs and in the Bethany Congregational Church. In 1936 he gave his mother's house to the church for use as a parsonage, to be known as the Harriet Baldwin Memorial Church House.

Membership

Johnson belonged to numerous scientific societies. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1919, served as president of the American Institute of Chemists (1926-1928), and was a member of the National Research Council.

From 1930 to 1947 Johnson served as president of the Bethany Library Association, which he had founded and which built a library and established an endowment fund for its support. He, however, aroused considerable dislike in the community, as he was impatient under the authority of others and would serve on a board or committee only if he could be chairman.

Connections

Johnson married Emma Estelle Amerman of Woodside, Long Island, on June 29, 1904. They had no children. They lived a quiet life, first in New Haven and from 1928 in a house on what had been his father's farm in Bethany.

Father:

Dwight Lauren Johnson

Mother:

Harriet Adeline Baldwin

Spouse:

Emma Estelle Amerman

References

• A Half Century of Chemistry in America 1876 - 1926, The Journal of the American Chemical Society
• Obituary record of graduates of Yale University