Technikatörténeti szemle 19. (1992)

KÖNYVISMERTETÉS - Papers of the First „MINERALKONTOR” International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Veszprém, 12-16 August, 1991)

A student of the Academy, F. Müller, discovered, in 1784, tellurium, the only element up to now — and as it appears, finally that had been discovered in Hungary. It is interesting to note that — in contrast to most element discoveries in the 18th century — a wet procedure was used instead of the blowpipe. The second chemical university department in Hungary was established in 1769 at the University of Pest, headed by J. Wintert. This studious scientist was very active. He analyzed numerous mineral waters and used hydrogen sulphide systematically as reagent. This had earlier been proposed by Boyle, but scarcely been utilized since Winterl's method for the determination of phlogiston dissolved in water is a unique curiosity in the history of analytical chemistry. The method was described by his pupil Österreicher in his dissertation entitled Analyses aquarum Budensium and published in 1781. For me it was a remarkable personal experience that I was the first reader of the copy found at the library of our university: in fact, I cut the edges of the book. At Winterl's time, much was said and written about phlogiston, but only this one method had been published for its determination. It is most interesting that disregarding the basic reaction, namely that phlogiston volatilizes on addition of nitric acid, Winterl's method surprises with its excellent stoichiometric concept, many years before Richter created stoichiometry. So, ladies and gentlemen, the only place where you can drink water with known phlogiston content is Budapest. Österreicher, of course, found that the phlogiston content in different mineral waters was the same, with the exception of Marguerite Island mineral water whose phlogiston content was several times as high. Maybe our tourist propaganda could utilize this datum. Another of Winterl's pupils, F.Nyulas, published the first book on analysis written in Hungarian, namely on investigations of Transsylvanián medicinal waters. In his preface to the book which appeared at Kolozsvár in 1800, he complains that it was a more difficult task to find the appropriate Hungarian terms than to analyze the waters. The department of Winterl has continuously played a leading part in Hungarian chemistry for the past 200 years. Károly Than, one of the greatest characters in Hungarian chemistry, was head of the department from 1860 to 1908, for 48 years. In analytical chemistry, his major achievements were the introduction of potassium hydrogen carbonate as acidimétrie standard and potassium hydrogen iodate as iodometric standard. He defined first the so called normal or molecular volume of gases. His pupil and successor, Lajos Winkler ranks among the classics of analytical chemistry. He began his career with his doctorial dissertation in 1888, dealing with a method for determining oxygen dissolvedin water. This method is still in use at present, and known as the Winkler method in the literature. Many other methods also bear his name, e. g. the determination of water hardness with oleate, determination of the iodine-bromine numbe of fats, determination of hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide, modification of ammonia determination. The high-precision gravimetric methods developed by Winkler belong to the most accurate methods in analysis, and are therefore — and will in the future — remain in use as basic methods, even in the age of instrumental and automated analysis, since all instrumental methods need a fundamental method for calibration. Another pupil of Than, István Győri proposed potassium bromate standard solutions for oxidimetry in 1893. Again another of Than's pupils,