Abstract
IN an interesting paper recently available in Britain, Prof. eljflffle (Bull. Soc. Chim., 8, 463; 1941) gives; spktphifborical facts relating to the discovert fit aicemic acid, which supplement the note £y YJfyf- A. Findlay (Nature, 140, 22; 1937). TlA Aid was obtained accidentally in the crystalliza-tiqjjj oV tartaric acid in a factory in Thann, Alsace, belonging to Kestner, which seems to have ceased operations about 1822, and is first mentioned by John in his "Handworterbuch -der allgemeinen Chemie"in 1819. The name 'racemic acid' was first used by Gay-Lussac in his lectures, notes of which were published in 1828, and he showed that it had the same composition as tartaric acid. Berzelius, in 1830, in discussing this fact, first used the word 'isomer'. The further history of the acid, in particular in the work of Pasteur (who was the first to use the name 'racemic' in general), is given in the article.
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Racemic Acid. Nature 158, 512 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/158512e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/158512e0