Relationes, Band 23. Elena Roussanova Deutsch-russische Beziehungen in der Chemie des 19. Jahrhunderts. Erster Teil, Biobibliographien. Aachen, Shaker 2018
Ferdinand Giese (1781–1821)
[Full name: Johann Emanuel Ferdinand von Giese]
discovered caffeine as a terminally ill person in the last year of his life, which ended shortly after 40.
He was born on January 13, 1781 at Schaumburg near Küstrin.
After attending the gymnasium in Küstrin, he trained as a practical pharmacist and chemist in Schrader's laboratory in Berlin. Then, in order to deepen his practical knowledge, he moved to the chemical factory of Dr. Dingeler in Augsburg in 1802. However, he left this position in the same year to be employed in Vienna on Scherer's recommendation as an imperial royal court official in the emperor's pharmacy.
Towards the end of 1803 he received a request from his friend, the Baron of Jaquin [Jacquin, Joseph Franz (1766-1839)], to accept the position of adjoint professor of [pharmacy and] chemistry at the university to be established in Kharkov, and was confirmed at a 'higher authority' for this post.
Before he went there, he obtained a doctorate in philosophy in Erfurt, and immediately after his arrival in Kharkov in 1804 he set up a chemical laboratory to spread and perfect chemistry in Russia. After he had become an associate professor of chemistry here in 1805 and a full professor in 1811 – and had made several trips to study mineral waters in southern Russia – , he was appointed full professor in Dorpat on November 6, 1814, where he received a title similar to a 'Collegiate Councillor' in 1819 and the St. Anna Order of the second class in 1817.
He was a corresponding member of various imperial academies and societies.
Ferdinand Giese was an eminent chemist and author of a multi-volume textbook of chemistry and published many original publications in the then renowned chemical journals.
In a letter of September 15, 1820, addressed to Allgemeine nordische Annalen der Chemie für die Freunde der Naturkunde und Arzneiwissenschaft he wrote:*
Ferdinand von Giese and ...
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The 'Caffeines'
The
Caffeine Plants
