August Wilhelm Hofmann played a major role in the development and organization of the 19th century chemical profession in both Germany and Great Britain. Born in Geissen, he entered the local university in 1836 to study law and philosophy, but switched to chemistry after attending Liebig’s lectures. After obtaining his doctorate in 1841, he served as Liebig’s assistant and taught briefly at the University of Bonn. In 1845 Hofmann was recommended by Liebig as professor and director of the newly organized Royal College of Chemistry in London. Founded by Prince Albert and modeled on Liebig’s laboratory, the Royal College would, during Hofmann’s 20-year tenure, train some of England’s most important chemists, including W. Perkin, H. Armstrong, and J.R.A. Newlands.

In 1865 Hofmann returned to Germany as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Berlin, where he remained until his death. In 1867 he founded the German Chemical Society (Duetsche Chemische Gesellschaft) along with its famous journal, the Berichte, which was first published in 1868.

In the field of organic chemistry, Hofmann is best known for his studies of the organic derivatives of ammonia and phosphine and for his subsequent discovery of the Hofmann degradation reaction. He also investigated the structure of formaldehyde and discovered the first unsaturated alcohol as well as several organic dyes, including fuchsine, rosaniline, and aniline blue. Since mauve, the first important aniline dye, was discovered by his student, William Perkin, the synthetic dye industry may be said to have been born in his London laboratory.

In 1865 Hofmann published his book, An Introduction to Modern Chemistry. This volume gave a brilliant summary of type theory and the newly emerging theory of structure and strongly influenced the revision of introductory textbooks in both Europe and the United States. In this book, Hofmann first introduced the term valence, under its longer variant quantivalence, to describe the combining capacity of an atom. Although personally incompetent in the laboratory, Hofmann was skillful at creating interesting lecture demonstrations such as the Hofmann electrolysis cell, which were featured in the book. Hofmann was also the first chemist to popularize the use of the atomic model.

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