The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Fischer, Emil

FISCHER, Emil, German chemist: b. Euskirchen, 1852. After studying at Strassburg, in 1879 he was appointed professor extraordinary at the University of Munich and became professor of chemistry at Erlangen 1882, filling a similar chair at Würzburg 1885. He was appointed professor of organic chemistry at the University of Berlin 1892, succeeding the celebrated A. W. Hofmann; and in 1902 received the Noble prize for chemical research. His researches were along the lines of synthetic sugar, in which field he was a pioneer; and he also made significant investigations of the composition of the &ldquo;purine group,&rdquo; the polypeptides (synthetic proteids) and the depsides. He is author of &lsquo;Anleitung zur Darstellung organischer Präparate&rsquo; (Eng. trans. by Stanford, 1909), a popular text-book; numerous papers which have since been collected into book form, and &lsquo;Die Chemie der Kohlenhydrate und ihre Bedentung für die Physiologie&rsquo; (1894), and &lsquo;Chemical Research in its Bearings on National Welfare&rsquo; (1912).