The nineteenth century German chemist Wilhelm Heintz (1818-1880) studied with Heinrich Rose and Eilhard Mitserlich during in Berlin during the 1840s and as a student was one of the founders of the Berlin Physical Society in 1845. Because of his initial position in a medical school, and inspired by Justus von Liebig, Heintz became interested in physiological chemistry, especially the identification and analysis of compounds found in animal and vegetable fluids. Between 1845 and 1850, he published 26 papers that described novel methods for isolating and identifying components of various animal fluids, especially human urine. After his call to the University of Halle in 1851, Heintz began a project on the analysis of various plant and animal fats, or the �fat kingdom� as he affectionately called it, in which he called into question the assumed purity of well known fatty acids derived from plants and animals. This paper will recount Heintz' career in Berlin and Halle, and discuss his painstaking methods for demonstrating that some well-known fatty acids, presumed for decades to be pure, were in fact mixtures of other known fatty acids. It will also argue that Heintz' work provides an excellent example of how chemists define a unique chemical species.

Wilhelm Heintz (1817-1880) and the chemistry of the fatty acids

244th National Meeting (2012)

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