Abstract
FROM the time of their discovery, the organo-A metallic compounds have aroused particular chemical interest. The manner in which they were first encountered was dramatic. Edward Frankland, working in Bunsen's laboratory in 1849, was attempting to isolate the radical methyl by heating methyl iodide with zinc in a sealed tube. "After discharging the gases"he says ("Sketches from the Life of Sir Edward Frankland", p. 186), "I cut off the upper part of the tube in order to try the action of water upon the solid residue. Upon pouring a few drops of water upon this residue, a greenish-blue flame, several feet long, shot out of the tube, causing great excitement in the laboratory. Bunsen, who had suffered from arsenical poisoning during his researches on cacodyl, suggested that the spontaneously inflammable body might be that terrible compound formed by arsenic present in the zinc as an impurity, and that I might be already irrecoverably poisoned."
Die Chemie der metall-organischen Verbindungen
Von Prof. Dr. Erich Krause Prof. Dr. Aristid von Grosse. Pp. xvi + 926. (Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger, 1937.) 55.20 gold marks.
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M., W. Die Chemie der metall-organischen Verbindungen. Nature 141, 625–626 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141625a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141625a0
