Abstract
ALEXANDER PORFIREVI BORODIN, the distin guished Russian chemist who was born on November 12, 1834, was the natural son of Prince Guedeanov. At an early age he was attracted to music and is better known as a composer than as a man of science. He studied chemistry under Zinin at St. Petersburg (Leningrad), graduating in medicine in 1858. He had a brief career as an army doctor, and after being appointed as professor of chemistry, was sent abroad with Mendeuf and others to study under Bunsen, Kekule” and Erlenmeyer in Germany and under Wurtz at Paris. Borodin also went to Italy with Mendef and studied at Pisa. Before returning to St. Petersburg in 1862, to take up his duties as professor, he commenced a series of investigations on the condensation reactions of aldehydes and discovered aldol simultaneously with Wurtz. He prepared and studied numerous double inorganic fluorides and a few organic fluorides. Altogether Borodin published about twenty chemical papers, the last few dealing with the higher fatty acids. His leisure was mostly given to music and his musical friends (his wife, Katerina Sergeievna Protopova, was a pianist), but he found time to urge the claims of Russian women regarding education, and from 1872 he gave free lectures in chemistry for the St. Peters burg Women's Medical School, of which he was one of the founders. He died on February 16, 1877.
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A. P. Borodin (1834–77). Nature 134, 727 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134727c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134727c0