NEES von ESENBECK, Christian; BISCHOF, Carl Gustav & ROTHE, Heinrich August (Eds.)

Erlangen, J. J. Palm & Ernst Enke, 1819. 4to. (8),+ 232 pp. Contemporary half calf, gilt and black decorated spine, marbled boards and red edges. Slight tear in upper joints. Book plates of Hans Söderling and Nils Fries. Pritzel 6645. First edition of this important work on organic analysis and which is a ”... transition between the old and new methods of analysis, represented by a work of Nees von Esenbeck, Bischof and Rothe, "Die Entwickelung der Pflanzensubstanz", Erlangen, 1819, a rare book which is otherwise of considerable interest in the history of plant chemistry. This contains tables, from which the chemical formulae may be deduced from the results of distillation analyses, containing 981 'complexions' of the five binary compounds of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, namely, water, carbonic oxide, carbonic acid, olefiant gas and marsh gas.” (History of Organic Analysis, in ”Nature” 134 (1934), page 95.) Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (1776-1858) was a German nature-philosopher, physician and botanist, president of the Leopoldina and professor if botany at Erlangen, Bonn and finally in Breslau. Carl Gustav Bischof (1792-1870) was a chemist and in 1819 appointed to the position of an extra-ordinary professor of chemistry at Bonn, and in 1822 to that of a full professor. Heinrich August Rothe (1773-1842) was a mathematician and professor in Erlangen. The work consists partly of letters between the three scientist on the subject.