Jakub Natanson

{{Short description|Polish scientist and banker}}

Image:POL Jakub Natanson.jpg

Jakub Natanson (20 August 1832 – 14 September 1884) was a Polish Jewish chemist and banker, one of the discoverers of Fuchsine.{{Cite web|last1=Cooksey|first1=Chris|last2=Dronsfield|first2=Alan|title=The battle for magenta [Fuchsine]|url=https://edu.rsc.org/feature/the-battle-for-magenta/2020242.article|access-date=2021-11-25|website=RSC Education|language=en}} He wrote the first textbook on organic chemistry in the Polish language.{{Cite web|last=Natanson|first=Jakób|title=Krotki rys Chemii Organicznej|url=https://polona.pl/item/krotki-rys-chemii-organicznej-ze-szczegolnym-wzgledem-na-rolnictwo-technologia-i,OTI4OTc4MzA/6/#info:metadata|access-date=2021-11-25|website=polona.pl}}

Life

He was born 20 August 1832 in Warsaw as the son of a banker. From 1852 to 1856 he studied chemistry at the Universität Dorpat (today Tartu, central Estonia) with a master's degree in 1856, where he synthesized fuchsine in the master's thesis (published in Liebigs Annalen). He then trained from 1858 to 1862 in Germany, France and Great Britain with leading chemists and in 1862 became Professor of Chemistry at the Szkoła Główna Warszawska in Warsaw. In 1856 he found two new urea syntheses.{{Cite journal|last=Natanson|first=J.|date=1856|title=1. Ueber zwei neue künstliche Bildungsweisen des Harnstoffs|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jlac.18560980303|journal=Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie|language=de|volume=98|issue=3|pages=287–291|doi=10.1002/jlac.18560980303}}

He gave up his professorship in 1866 to join the family bank (Bank Handlowy, today after the merger citi-Handlowy.) He was in the management of various companies (with interests in coal mining, paper, sugar, railroad) and founded, among others, the industrial and agricultural museum (1875).

He died on 14 September 1884 in Warsaw and was buried in the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery.

Literature

Professor Jakub Natanson is mentioned in several books:

  • [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/504507831 Jakub Natanson, by Edmund Trepka, 1955] (in English)
  • Winfried R. Pötsch, Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexikon bedeutender Chemiker (en: Lexicon of eminent chemists ) . Harri Deutsch, Frankfurt am Main/Thun 1989, {{ISBN|3-8171-1055-3}}
  • [http://www.psb.pan.krakow.pl The Polish Biographical dictionary, 1905]
  • [https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/edge-destruction Celia S. Heller, On the Edge of Destruction -Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars], {{ISBN|9780814324943}} (p. 36)
  • Henryk Kroszczor: Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw. Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1983, p. 20. {{ISBN|83-01-04304-0}}
  • [https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Jakub+Natanson "Jakub Natanson." The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition. 1970-1979. The Gale Group, Inc. 25 Nov. 2021]

Publications

References