(14(25).04.1757 - 27.11.1804)
In 1768, the German astronomer Georg Lovits was invited to St. Petersburg by the Academy of Sciences. Lovitz was appointed head of the Astrakhan astronomical expedition for research in the southeast of European Russia. The expedition was designed for several years.
Lovitz's only son, Tobias, was not very healthy, and his father took him with him, hoping that the trip would benefit the boy. In June 1774, on the way to St. Petersburg, a tragic event occurred: the expedition encountered the defeated retreating detachments of Emelyan Pugachev ... A.S. Pushkin wrote in The History of Pugachev: “Pugachev fled along the banks of the Volga. Here he met the astronomer Lovitz and asked what kind of person. Hearing that Lovitz observed the course of the heavenly bodies, he ordered him to be hung closer to the stars. A seventeen-year-old boy miraculously escaped death. He experienced a severe shock from which he never fully recovered.
In St. Petersburg, Tobias found himself completely alone. At public expense, he was assigned to the Academic Gymnasium. There he was prepared hard life. Well versed in mathematics, physics and astronomy (thanks to his father), he, in fact, had no liberal education and did not speak Russian well. Cruel and rude morals reigned in the gymnasium. The time spent in it became a nightmare for Tobias. Of the seven years allotted for training, he survived only two years.
He was almost twenty, but he had difficulty imagining his future. It is not known exactly whether someone gave good advice, or whether the decision came to him on his own, but in February 1777 he entered the Main Petersburg Pharmacy as an apprentice. It was better equipped than the chemical laboratory of the Academy of Sciences, which, after the death of M.V. Lomonosov gradually fell into decline.
Thus began Lovitz's passion for chemistry. The pharmacy library had many books containing various chemical information. The obsession of the apothecary's apprentice caused only surprise, and even ridicule, of those around him. In May 1779, Tobias became an assistant pharmacist, but this appointment only increased the persecution of "colleagues".
The result was a serious illness. Few hoped for a favorable outcome. However, Tobias survived. He later confessed: “I came to my senses and gained reason ... but I felt only the full extent of my distress.” He had no family, no devoted friends, no elementary comforts of life. He realized that he could save a life only by drastically changing its course. And Lovitz decides to return to his homeland, to Göttingen. There he lived with the only close relative - his maternal uncle. And those few people who knew and remembered his father.
He enters the University of Göttingen to study medicine, which is too costly and lengthy to complete. Yes, and Tobias himself understands that the path of the Aesculapius is not his path. He increasingly recalls classes in the laboratory of the St. Petersburg pharmacy. In addition, relations with my uncle and his family did not work out.
Lovitz loved travel. At first it was small walks, then he began to undertake long excursions. Health improved dramatically - physical and spiritual. In 1782 he traveled over 200 miles through Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy. Undertakes an ascent of the Bernese Glacier in the Alps. And climb Mont Blanc. “My passionate desire to visit the most high point Europe was so big that I climbed up from the greatest work and danger to the highest peak of this wonderful mountain...” Tobias wrote to one of his St. Petersburg acquaintances.
More and more unpromising was the further stay in Göttingen. The decision is ripening to return to St. Petersburg. He requests the leadership of the Academy and in the spring of 1783 he receives an assurance that he can count on his former position in the pharmacy.
On a May morning in 1784, Toviy Yegorovich Lovitz (as they will call him in the Russian way) sails to St. Petersburg. Now he will forever remain in Russia, will be a part of its history.
Evil fate continues to hover over Lovitz. His family life developed successfully, but four young children die one after another, and then his wife goes to the grave. His second marriage was also sad. In an obituary about Lovitz, they will write: “His life was overshadowed by a thousand sorrows and his days were a tangle of suffering.” But the following words were also contained there: “He knew no other joys than those that brought him chemical discoveries».
In the person of Toviy Lovitz, Russian natural science acquired the most important chemist of the 18th century, versatile in interests and successful in achievements. However, is there any exaggeration in such a statement? After all, it was M.V. Lomonosov is considered the founder of Russian chemistry. It was he who created the first Chemical Laboratory in our state and conducted extensive research in it. There are no words: according to the “Hamburg account”, the figures of Lomonosov and Lovitz are incomparable. What the activities of the great scientist-encyclopedist meant for Russia does not need comments. But to be impartial, it is not so easy to name specific chemical discoveries made by Lomonosov; discoveries that would certainly find a place in the chronological annals of the development of chemistry. Lovitz's achievements in this chronology would occupy several obvious positions. P.I. Walden wrote: “By the originality of their scientific works, according to the exemplary experimental implementation of them and the scientific significance of the new data obtained by him, T. Lovitz should be recognized as the best experimental chemist of the 18th century in Russia. His work is equally concerned with analytical, physical and organic chemistry. “And,” Walden adds, “if Russia in the 18th century were destined to have ... just one more chemist who would combine the far-sighted plans of Lomonosov the philosopher with the patient ingenuity of Lovitz the experimentalist, then chemical science in Russia would rise to the same level with Western European science. For all the time he worked in St. Petersburg, Lovshch had almost no assistants and students. Except, perhaps, K. S. Kirchhoff, who discovered in 1811 the first catalytic chemical reaction.
It is worthy of surprise how much Lovitz did - a tireless researcher, in whose personal life one tragic event followed another, and ailments more and more declared themselves; the truly obsessive researcher is a brilliant self-taught chemist, essentially uneducated.
Accurate to the day (June 5, 1785), he dates the discovery of adsorption (absorption) from solutions of substances by charcoal. “It [this discovery] alone would make Lovitz immortal,” his biographer A.I. Scherer. This was the first step towards the creation in the future of the most important scientific discipline - the physical chemistry of surface phenomena. Lovitz used charcoal to purify a wide variety of products (drugs, drinking water, grain vodka, honey and other sugary substances, saltpeter, etc.). The practical effect was so great that the name of the author of the discovery became widely known abroad, and in 1787 the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences elected Lovitz a corresponding member (he became a full member in 1793). One of the first in the world, Lovitz began to systematically study the processes of crystallization; he can be considered the founder of the study of the mechanism of formation of crystals from solutions. Introduced the concepts of "supersaturation" and "hypothermia". He isolated caustic alkalis in crystalline form, prepared glacial acetic acid and, having acted on it with chlorine, observed the formation of chloroacetic acids; finally, he received anhydrous alcohol ("pure alcohol"). He was the first in Russia to become interested in the chemistry of sugars and established the difference between honey and cane sugar.
As an analytical chemist, Lovitz was engaged in the analysis of minerals and improved the methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis (for example, he proposed a method for the qualitative determination of substances by their crystalline form). Regardless of the Scottish researchers A. Crawford and W. Cruikshank, he discovered a new chemical element strontium in heavy spar. Knowing nothing about the discovery of chromium by the French analyst L. Vauquelin, Lovitz almost simultaneously isolated this element from the mineral crocoite. He began to study the chemistry of titanium and niobium. Perhaps, the scientist could be called the first specialist in Rus' in the field of chemistry of rare elements... In addition, he developed a new method for the analysis of natural silicates and silica. He has published over 170 papers in Russian, German, French and Latin. The excellent style of presentation testifies that the Russian language has become native to him.
His creative activity did not weaken even when, in 1800, due to a serious injury, he ceased to use his left hand. The scientist even planned to carry out the rise in a balloon. Perhaps here, too, obsession would allow Lovitz to achieve his goal. But on November 27, 1804, he died of apoplexy. And he was only 47 years old.
Unfortunately, Lovitz was destined for many years of oblivion. The Academy instructed Scherer to prepare his scientific heritage for publication. He limited himself to writing a short article. Through the fault of Scherer, the most valuable archival documents were lost. The name Lovitz has become less and less common in literature - domestic and foreign. Very few chemists have given credit to his achievements. Only in the mid-1950s. Russian historian of chemistry N.A. Figurovsky first collected and commented on all the published works of the scientist.
Why, then, did Lovitz's contribution to chemistry not receive a timely and proper assessment?
The works of A. Lavoisier (oxygen theory of combustion) and J. Dalton (creation of the foundations of chemical atomism) contributed to early XIX V. rapid progress in chemistry. Outstanding discoveries followed one after another; a whole cohort of talented European scientists made a genuine chemical revolution. And against this enchanting background, the achievements of a researcher from distant and for many mysterious Russia were lost.
In our country, however, the conditions have not yet developed for the significance of Lovitz's discoveries to be properly understood and appreciated. Literally single nature testers were professionally engaged in chemistry; their names are now known only to meticulous historians of science. In essence, systematic chemical research began in Russia in 1830-1840, when such luminaries as G.I. Hess, A.A. Voskresensky, N.N. Zinin. At the beginning of the century, Lovitz simply did not find successors to his work.
On the tombstone of Lovitz was engraved in no-Latin: “It is not enough for itself, for all of us it is a lot” (the stone disappeared somewhere already in our unlucky times). Perhaps, one could hardly have chosen better words for memory. They are like an epigraph to the life of a scientist, evidence that he adequately overcame this "moment called life."
LOVITS Toviy Egorovich (Johann Tobias)
(25.IV. 1757 - 17.XII. 1804)
Russian chemist, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (since 1793)
Born in Göttingen. In 1768, together with his father, astronomer G.M. Lovits, he came to Russia. After tragic death father, who was on a scientific expedition, during the Pugachev rebellion, the young man was brought up by the famous mathematician Leonard Euler. Tovy Lovitz was a student at the Main Pharmacy in St. Petersburg (until 1780).
He studied at the University of Göttingen (1780-1782). In 1784-1797. again worked at the Main Pharmacy in St. Petersburg, where he completed a significant part of his research.
Since 1797, he worked in his home laboratory, being officially in the service of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences as a professor of chemistry.
Researches are devoted to various problems of chemistry. Discovered (1785) phenomenon adsorption coal in a liquid medium and studied these processes in detail. Proposed to use coal to purify water, alcohol and vodka, pharmaceuticals and organic compounds.
At the same time, he researched salt crystallization from solutions. Discovered (1794) phenomenon supersaturation And supercooling solutions; established the conditions for growing crystals.
He suggested that when analyzing salts, use individual crystalline modifications; for this he made 288 models - standards- various substances and classified them according to chemical characteristics.
Developed a number of recipes for cooling mixtures.
Discovered (1789) a method of obtaining glacial acetic acid. First received a crystal glucose (1792), sodium chloride dihydrate And crystalline caustic alkalis(1795). Cooked (1796) anhydrous (absolute) diethyl ether And ethanol; the latter was used to separate barium, strontium and calcium salts.
According to the materials of the biographical directory "Outstanding chemists of the world" (authors V.A. Volkov and others) - Moscow, " graduate School", 1991
Among the successors of Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov in the Department of Chemistry Russian Academy Sciences the most prominent in the XVIII century. was Tovy Yegorovich Lovitz. His work laid the foundations for several important branches of physical chemistry, and some of them, like the work of Lomonosov, were far ahead of contemporary science.
As happened more than once with the work of Russian scientists, Lovitz's work was stubbornly hushed up by scientists for many decades. Western Europe, and a number of discoveries made by Lovitz were attributed to others without sufficient evidence. Correcting a historical injustice, we can now with good reason call Lovitz one of the founders of physical chemistry.
Court Apothecary
The chemist's father, Georg Moritz Lowitz (1722-1774) began his career as a map drawer in Nuremberg. Having become interested in astronomy after the eclipse of 1748, he devoted himself entirely to this science and already in 1754 was an assistant to the famous Göttingen astronomer Tobias Meyer. In 1767, Lovitz moved with his son, born in 1757, to St. Petersburg, where he was invited as a professor of astronomy and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In St. Petersburg, young Lovitz graduated from the gymnasium at the Academy of Sciences. In 1769, he participated in an astronomical expedition led by his father to the Caspian Sea. During the trip, the members of the expedition were captured in 1774 by one of Pugachev's detachments. Lovitz's father, who was probably mistaken for an officer in the government troops who were brutally suppressing the uprising at that time, was hanged. The rest of the expedition, including the young Lovitz, managed to escape and in 1775 returned to St. Petersburg.
In 1776, Lovitz went to work in the court "Main Imperial Pharmacy", from where, having acquired an interest in chemistry, he went in 1780 to complete his education at the University of Göttingen. After graduating in 1783, Lovitz returned to Russia the following year, where he again entered the court pharmacy, first as an assistant, and then as an apothecary.
In the laboratory of this pharmacy, Lovitz made his first discovery a year later, which gave him an honorable place in the history of chemical science. He discovered in June 1785 the phenomenon of adsorption of dissolved substances by charcoal.
Phlogiston and carbon adsorption
The impetus for this discovery was the need to find a way to purify tartaric acid, which Lovitz had to obtain in large quantities in a pharmacy for medical purposes. When evaporating acid solutions, darkening was almost always observed, even if the evaporation was carried out with all the precautions, on a slow fire. “This darkening is especially unpleasant to me,” wrote Lovitz, “and I want nothing so much as to find a way to avoid this unpleasant phenomenon, which is a consequence of the easy destruction of this acid.” And Lovitz found such a remedy, and the fact that he made his discovery based on the theory of phlogiston is especially interesting.
The theory of phlogiston was the main foundation of chemistry during the second half of the 17th and all of the 18th centuries. (before Lavoisier). According to this theory, developed mainly by Stahl (1660-1734), the properties of substances are combustibility or incombustibility, changeability when chemical reactions etc. - are determined by the presence or absence, greater or lesser content in them of a special combustible principle, called by Stahl "phlogiston", or "fuel" (as Russian scientists of the 18th century called it, including Lovitz). Any body capable of burning, the phlogiston theory taught, contains phlogiston, which is released during combustion, and ash remains, which no longer has the property of combustibility. The more phlogiston in the body, the greater the ability to burn it shows. From the point of view of this theory, the metal is a complex body consisting of metallic "lime" and phlogiston; when burned, the phlogiston escapes, leaving a metallic "lime" or dross. Coal is also a complex body, decomposing during combustion into phlogiston and ash, etc.
The theory of phlogiston, which now seems absurd and artificial to us, once played a large positive role in the development of chemistry. For the first time, it made it possible to interpret all the phenomena known to chemists at that time from a unified point of view, to cover and systematize all the discovered facts. “Chemistry was emancipated from alchemy only thanks to the theory of phlogiston” (Engels). Based on the phlogiston theory, a number of outstanding discoveries were made, which later prepared the fall of this theory and its replacement by the more advanced oxygen theory of combustion created by Lavoisier.
Based on the theory of phlogiston, Lovitz's discovery was also made. He reasoned as follows.
Tartaric acid, like any organic substance, is capable of burning and, therefore, contains phlogiston. But phlogiston is wholly liberated from the body only by means of combustion, but with slight heating (as is the case in the case of evaporating an acid solution), only an excess part of phlogiston, most weakly associated with pure acid, is liberated. It is this released excess of phlogiston that causes contamination of the solution.
“I came to the conclusion,” Lovitz wrote, “that the brown color of our liquid comes from a fuel (phlogiston) formed as a result of the easy decomposition of this acid into its constituent parts from the released oily parts and is only in a weak connection with pure acid, as an excess relation to the latter.
You can rid the solution of phlogiston impurities by adding substances that are able to greedily absorb it. “This fuel,” Lovitz wrote further, “as soon as it met a substance with which, due to its greater affinity, it could form a closer connection, it would very easily completely separate from pure acid.” What substance has the required property? “The property of coal not to give away its fuel (phlogiston) in the closed access of free air to a vessel of its fuel (phlogiston) even at the highest temperature made me suppose that by holding the latter so strongly, coal could be able to attract more large quantities fuel with which he would have to come into contact. Therefore, if charcoal is added to a contaminated solution, the latter will extract excess phlogiston, and thus the solution will be purified. Lovitz made the corresponding experiment and discovered the adsorption of dissolved substances by charcoal.
adsorption phenomenon
Being a real scientist, Lovitz did not calm down when he discovered a single fact. He immediately tried to generalize his discovery and made numerous experiments, studying in detail various cases of using coal as an adsorbing agent. First of all, he investigated the effect of coal powder on various contaminated liquids. He found that charcoal purifies all kinds of dirty ("brown") solutions of salts, clarifies the color of honey, syrup and other juices, and decolorizes solutions of dyes. Lovitz went on to study the effect of coal on various odorous substances. It turned out that coal deprives plain vodka. smell and taste of fusel oil, cleanses stagnant (“rotten”) foul-smelling water, making it drinkable. Lovitz tested the effects of charcoal powder on garlic and even on bed bugs, finding that the charcoal robs them of their offensive odor.
Finally, Lovitz also discovered the antiseptic effect of coal. Charcoal prevents meat from rotting, it can be used against "tooth meat", and if you rub it on your teeth and then rinse them, then bad breath is destroyed. Coal has an antiseptic effect when taken orally.
Soon Lovitz's discovery received practical use. In 1794 he reported on the use of coal powder in Russian navy for cleaning spoiled water during sea trips. This method was described by him back in 1790 in his work “Indication of a new way to make drinking water during sea voyages”. In addition, the method developed by Lovitz for the purification of raw wine alcohol was applied at Russian vodka factories. Lovitz's discovery made a great impression on the scientific community. Many prominent foreign scientists repeated his experiments and tried to explain the adsorbing effect of coal. Lovitz's discovery is of tremendous importance in our time. Coal, properly processed (activated), finds wide industrial and defense applications, and the theory of adsorption is a large and important chapter of modern physical chemistry.
Crystallization phenomena
Scientific and Practical activities The catcher did not go unnoticed. In 1786 he was elected a member of the Free Economic Society, and in 1788 - a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, two years later - an adjunct of chemistry of the Academy of Sciences, and, finally, in 1793 received the title of ordinary academician.
Already a few years after the discovery of adsorption phenomena, Lowitz acted as a pioneer in another area - in the field of crystallization phenomena. Developing a method for obtaining pure concentrated acetic acid and studying its properties, in 1788 he discovered anhydrous crystalline acetic acid, calling it "glacial acetic acid" (this name has survived to this day). Studying in detail the conditions for the crystallization of "ice vinegar", Lovitz discovered such phenomena as supersaturation and supercooling of solutions, grafting and growth of crystals, etc.
Lovitz expanded his research from acetic acid to other subjects. In 1792, using the winter frosts, he first received table salt with water of crystallization (the so-called NaCl + 2H2O dihydrate), crystalline sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide, and studied their properties in detail. He determined the relationship between temperature and the amount of water bound in crystals, as well as between the amount of water and the shape of crystals.
At the same time, Lovitz suggested the use of multiple crystallization for the complete purification of substances from impurities. Currently, this method is widely used in scientific and industrial practice.
It should be noted that the remarkable discoveries of Lovitz in the field of crystallization phenomena, which is still the subject of careful study, outlined by him back in 1794 in the article “Notes on the crystallization of salts and a report on a reliable means of obtaining regular crystals”, were subsequently attributed to various foreign scientists. Thus, the method of grafting crystals was attributed to Leblanc (1802), the discovery of supersaturated solutions - to Gay-Lussac (1813), the development of the method of slow crystallization - to Clement and Desormes (1814), etc.
artificial cold. Microchemical analysis
Having received crystals of caustic potash in 1792, Lovitz noticed that dissolving them in water "causes a very sensitive cold." He investigated this phenomenon and discovered artificial cooling mixtures, which are now widely used in laboratory and factory work. He also proposed the first recipes for cooling mixtures, mostly preserved to this day. So, he found that a mixture of 3 parts of snow and 4 parts of crystalline calcium chloride (CaCl2 + H2O) gives a decrease in temperature to -50 °, and in 1878 - 80 years after Lovitz - it was determined that a mixture of 2, 8 parts of snow and 4 parts of the same salt gives a decrease in temperature to -54.9 ° (almost complete coincidence). However, these discoveries, which at one time attracted great attention Western European scientists were later attributed to others, and the name of Lovitz was not mentioned in German textbooks of chemistry and physics already in 1852.
Analytical chemistry, the foundations of which were developed in the time of Lovitz, also owes him several discoveries.
Lovitz found a method for separating barium from strontium and calcium (1795), a method for dissolving natural silicates (which he developed while studying Russian minerals and natural products), and some others.
In 1798, while studying the crystallization of salt solutions, Lovitz used a microscope and came to the conclusion that microscopic examination of the shape of crystals can be used for fast and accurate analysis of salts. Thus, he laid the foundation for a very valuable microchemical analysis, which became widespread only 100 years after Lovitz.
In addition to the extensive research mentioned above, Lovitz made a number of other discoveries. For example, the property of polybasic acids discovered by him to give two series of salts - acidic and neutral (1789) - just 4 years after his death was used by Wollaston to experimentally confirm the atomic theory (1808). Further, chloroacetic acids, first obtained in 1793 by Lovitz by the action of chlorine on acetic acid, later "discovered" by foreign scientists Dumas (1830) and Leblanc (1844) for the second time, subsequently played a large role in the development of the theory of organic chemistry. Finally, even the ways of artificial production of a sugary substance were outlined by Lovitz about 100 years before the practical implementation of this synthesis.
Whatever this brilliant experimenter and subtle observer undertook, he everywhere knew how to find the most important and most interesting. And he was always able to properly evaluate and study the newly discovered phenomenon.
Tovy Egorovich Lovitz died on November 26, 1804 in St. Petersburg. His name will forever remain in the history of chemical science.
] Edition, articles and notes by N.A. Figurovsky.
(Moscow: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1953. - Series "Classics of Science")
Scan: AAW, processing, format: mor, 2010
- CONTENT:
From the editor (5).
I. WORKS ON ADSORPTION AND THE APPLICATION OF ADSORPTION IN TECHNOLOGY
1. Report on the discovery of a method to completely avoid burning and browning of a solution of essential tartaric acid, even at a very high degree of fire, and also on the application of this discovery to the manufacture of sheet tartaric salt (15).
2. New indications of the high affinity of coal with fuel (21).
3. New inventions regarding the dephlogistic power of coal and its wide application in various chemical operations (27).
4. On the correction of bread wine without doubling (39).
5. New experiments with coal (46).
6. Indication of a new remedy, how to protect water during travels at sea from damage and make rotten water again convenient for a piggy (66).
7. Message to clarify some doubts about the dephlogistic ability of coal discovered by me (85).
8. Experiments on the purification of coarse saltpeter with coals (96).
9. New applications of the cleaning power of coal, and further explanations of how to avoid failures in its application (114).
10. On the harmlessness of charcoal (122).
11. Reflections based on experiments on the essence of the action of coal powder when it manifests its cleansing property (127).
II. CRYSTALLIZATION AND ARTIFICIAL COLD WORKS
1. New way concentration of vinegar and - bringing acetic acid to solid state in crystalline form without any impurity (135).
2. Continuation of the discourse on the crystallization of acetic acid, outlining the various recently discovered methods of its crystallization (148).
3. Observations on the crystallization of ordinary salt by means of cold and a new method of purifying this salt (174).
4. Presentation of new experiments on artificial cold (179).
5. Indication of a method for obtaining fire-resistant alkaline salts in the purest state by crystallization (203).
6. Presentation of new observations on the crystallization of salts, as well as a new invention concerning the formation of regular crystals by salts (208).
7. Experience in explaining the various phenomena that occur during the crystallization of salts (222).
8. On the special crystallization of sour sulfuric salt (229).
III. WORKS ON INORGANIC AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY AND TECHNOLOGY OF MINERALS
1. On strontium earth in heavy spar (235).
2. Determination of strontium earth in heavy spar (239).
3. Indication of some remarks about titanium (248).
4. Indication of a new, easier and more convenient way of dissolving fossils with the help of potassium (253).
5. Easy solubility of natural silica by potassium in the wet way (257).
6. A new method for obtaining completely saturated potassium carbonate with the addition of new remarks concerning the nature of imperfectly saturated carbonic acid kali (259).
7. Indication of a new method of testing salts (273).
8. A simple means to purify potash from all heterogeneous substances contained in it, presented to the Imperial Academy of Sciences by Academician Lovitz on April 28, 1802 (281).
9. On a new kind of Siberian chromium ore, with some remarks on the surest method of investigating mineral bodies containing chromium (283).
10. Preparation of real blue carmine (289).
Small notes and analyzes made by T.E. Lovitz
11. On the extraction of vitriol oil (290).
12. Mineralogical and chemical exploration of Yekaterinoslav earthen rocks (293).
13. Study of lead ore sent from the city of artillery, Major General Euler from the Davydov fortress in Finland (298).
14. Study of slate coal sent by Levshin from the city of Belev and the Tula viceroy (300).
15. Study of the mineral alkaline salt sent from the pharmacist Sievers from Kyakhta and mother earth containing this salt (302).
16. Testing of a mineral sent to the artillery by Major General Euler under the name of molybdenum (305).
17. Research sent to Volny economic society the so-called edible land (309).
18. Chemical decomposition of green sharl (baikalite) from Mount Kultuk in Baikal (317).
IV. WORKS ON ORGANIC CHEMISTRY AND TECHNOLOGY OF ORGANIC SUBSTANCES
1. How to prepare a very pleasant sweetened vinegar and acetic ester without the aid of a foreign substance (323).
2. Method without distillation to remove bad smell from hot bread wine (326).
3. Experiments and demonstrations on how to purify honey so that it can be used without distinction instead of sugar in various foods and drinks (331).
4. Indication of new observations regarding the nature of honey and the preparation of its sugary component in dry form (337).
5. Various chemical observations (344).
6. Indication of a new method, more perfect than hitherto used, for the release of sulfuric oil from ethyl alcohol (350).
7. Account of my experiments on the most complete reflux of alcohol (359).
8. Indication of an easier and more convenient way to convert all the acid of wine and beer vinegar into ice vinegar (375).
9. Indication of a new, easiest and most profitable way to prepare the strongest acetic acid, invented by Tobiy Lovitz, academician and collegiate adviser, honorary member of the State Medical College and member of many learned societies (381).
10. Notes on the extraction of sugar from natural products located in Russia (389).
11. Report to the Free Economic Society about the experiments carried out with the so-called potato soap (396).
12. Report on Moscow peat (399).
APPS
ON THE. Figurovsky. Life and scientific activity THOSE. Lovitz (403).
Notes to the works of T.E. Lovitz (515).
I. Works on adsorption and the application of adsorption in technology (515).
II. Works on crystallization and artificial cold (535).
III. Works on inorganic and analytical chemistry and mineral technology (548).
IV. Works on organic chemistry and technology organic matter (565).
Bibliography of T.E. Lovitz (577).
I. Articles and individual publications (577).
II. Notes on various subjects and reports on the results of analyzes (593).
III. The most important articles and notes on the works of T.E. Lovitz, written on his behalf by other authors (610).
Abbreviations of titles of periodicals (613).
In 1768, the German astronomer Georg Lovits was invited to St. Petersburg by the Academy of Sciences. Lovitz was appointed head of the Astrakhan astronomical expedition for research in the southeast of European Russia. The expedition was designed for several years.
Lovitz's only son, Tobias, was not very healthy, and his father took him with him, hoping that the trip would benefit the boy. In June 1774, on the way to St. Petersburg, a tragic event occurred: the expedition encountered the defeated retreating detachments of Emelyan Pugachev ... A.S. Pushkin wrote in The History of Pugachev: “Pugachev fled along the banks of the Volga. Here he met the astronomer Lovitz and asked what kind of person. Hearing that Lovitz observed the course of the heavenly bodies, he ordered him to be hung closer to the stars. A seventeen-year-old boy miraculously escaped death. He experienced a severe shock from which he never fully recovered.
In St. Petersburg, Tobias found himself completely alone. At public expense, he was assigned to the Academic Gymnasium. There he had a difficult life. Well versed in mathematics, physics and astronomy (thanks to his father), he, in fact, had no humanitarian education and had a poor command of Russian. Cruel and rude morals reigned in the gymnasium. The time spent in it became a nightmare for Tobias. Of the seven years allotted for training, he survived only two years.
He was almost twenty, but he had difficulty imagining his future. It is not known exactly whether someone gave good advice, or whether the decision came to him on his own, but in February 1777 he entered the Main Petersburg Pharmacy as an apprentice. It was better equipped than the chemical laboratory of the Academy of Sciences, which, after the death of M.V. Lomonosov gradually fell into decline.
Thus began Lovitz's passion for chemistry. In the pharmacy library there were many books containing various chemical information. The obsession of the apothecary's apprentice caused only surprise, and even ridicule, of those around him. In May 1779, Tobias became an assistant pharmacist, but this appointment only increased the persecution of "colleagues".
The result was a serious illness. Few hoped for a favorable outcome. However, Tobias survived. He later confessed: “I came to my senses and gained reason ... but I felt only the full extent of my distress.” He had no family, no devoted friends, no elementary comforts of life. He realized that he could save a life only by drastically changing its course. And Lovitz decides to return to his homeland, to Göttingen. There he lived with the only close relative - his maternal uncle. And those few people who knew and remembered his father.
He enters the University of Göttingen to study medicine, which is too costly and lengthy to complete. Yes, and Tobias himself understands that the path of the Aesculapius is not his path. He increasingly recalls classes in the laboratory of the St. Petersburg pharmacy. In addition, relations with my uncle and his family did not work out.
Lovitz loved travel. At first it was small walks, then he began to undertake long excursions. Health improved dramatically - physical and spiritual. In 1782 he traveled over 200 miles through Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy. Undertakes an ascent of the Bernese Glacier in the Alps. And climb Mont Blanc. “My passionate desire to visit the highest point in Europe was so great that I climbed with the greatest difficulty and danger to the highest peak of this wonderful mountain ...” Tobias wrote to one of his St. Petersburg acquaintances.
More and more unpromising was the further stay in Göttingen. The decision is ripening to return to St. Petersburg. He requests the leadership of the Academy and in the spring of 1783 he receives an assurance that he can count on his former position in the pharmacy.
On a May morning in 1784, Toviy Yegorovich Lovitz (as they will call him in the Russian way) sails to St. Petersburg. Now he will forever remain in Russia, will be a part of its history.
Evil fate continues to hover over Lovitz. His family life developed successfully, but four young children die one after another, and then his wife goes to the grave. His second marriage was also sad. In an obituary about Lovitz, they will write: “His life was overshadowed by a thousand sorrows and his days were a tangle of suffering.” But the following words were also contained there: “He knew no other joys than those that brought him his chemical discoveries.”
In the person of Toviy Lovitz, Russian natural science acquired the most important chemist of the 18th century, versatile in interests and successful in achievements. However, is there any exaggeration in such a statement? After all, it was M.V. Lomonosov is considered the founder of Russian chemistry. It was he who created the first Chemical Laboratory in our state and conducted extensive research in it. There are no words: according to the “Hamburg account”, the figures of Lomonosov and Lovitz are incomparable. What the activities of the great scientist-encyclopedist meant for Russia does not need comments. But to be impartial, it is not so easy to name specific chemical discoveries made by Lomonosov; discoveries that would certainly find a place in the chronological annals of the development of chemistry. Lovitz's achievements in this chronology would occupy several obvious positions. P.I. Walden wrote: “By the originality of his scientific works, by the exemplary experimental implementation of them, and by the scientific significance of the new data obtained by him, T. Lovitz should be recognized as the best experimental chemist of the 18th century in Russia. His work is equally related to analytical, physical and organic chemistry. “And,” Walden adds, “if Russia in the 18th century were destined to have ... just one more chemist who would combine the far-sighted plans of Lomonosov the philosopher with the patient ingenuity of Lovitz the experimenter, then chemical science in Russia would rise to the same level with Western European science. For all the time he worked in St. Petersburg, Lovitz had almost no assistants and students. Except, perhaps, K. S. Kirchhoff, who discovered in 1811 the first catalytic chemical reaction.
It is worthy of surprise how much Lovitz did - a tireless researcher, in whose personal life one tragic event followed another, and ailments more and more declared themselves; the truly obsessive researcher is a brilliant self-taught chemist, essentially uneducated.
Accurate to the day (June 5, 1785), he dates the discovery of adsorption (absorption) from solutions of substances by charcoal. “It [this discovery] alone would make Lovitz immortal,” his biographer A.I. Scherer. This was the first step towards the creation in the future of the most important scientific discipline - the physical chemistry of surface phenomena. Lovitz used charcoal to purify a wide variety of products (drugs, drinking water, grain vodka, honey and other sugary substances, saltpeter, etc.). The practical effect was so great that the name of the author of the discovery became widely known abroad, and in 1787 the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences elected Lovitz a corresponding member (he became a full member in 1793). One of the first in the world, Lovitz began to systematically study the processes of crystallization; he can be considered the founder of the study of the mechanism of formation of crystals from solutions. Introduced the concepts of "supersaturation" and "hypothermia". He isolated caustic alkalis in crystalline form, prepared glacial acetic acid and, having acted on it with chlorine, observed the formation of chloroacetic acids; finally, he received anhydrous alcohol ("pure alcohol"). He was the first in Russia to become interested in the chemistry of sugars and established the difference between honey and cane sugar.
As an analytical chemist, Lovitz was engaged in the analysis of minerals and improved the methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis (for example, he proposed a method for the qualitative determination of substances by their crystalline form). Independently of the Scottish researchers A. Crawford and W. Cruikshank, he discovered a new chemical element, strontium, in heavy spar. Knowing nothing about the discovery of chromium by the French analyst L. Vauquelin, Lovitz almost simultaneously isolated this element from the mineral crocoite. He began to study the chemistry of titanium and niobium. Perhaps, the scientist could be called the first specialist in Rus' in the field of chemistry of rare elements... In addition, he developed a new method for the analysis of natural silicates and silica. He has published over 170 papers in Russian, German, French and Latin. The excellent style of presentation testifies that the Russian language has become native to him.
His creative activity did not weaken even when, in 1800, due to a serious injury, he stopped using his left hand. The scientist even planned to carry out the rise in a balloon. Perhaps here, too, obsession would allow Lovitz to achieve his goal. But on November 27, 1804, he died of apoplexy. And he was only 47 years old.
Unfortunately, Lovitz was destined for many years of oblivion. The Academy instructed Scherer to prepare his scientific heritage for publication. He limited himself to writing a short article. Through the fault of Scherer, the most valuable archival documents were lost. The name Lovitz has become less and less common in literature - domestic and foreign. Very few chemists have given credit to his achievements. Only in the mid-1950s. Russian historian of chemistry N.A. Figurovsky first collected and commented on all the published works of the scientist.
Why, then, did Lovitz's contribution to chemistry not receive a timely and proper assessment?
The works of A. Lavoisier (oxygen theory of combustion) and J. Dalton (creation of the foundations of chemical atomism) contributed at the beginning of the 19th century. rapid progress in chemistry. Outstanding discoveries followed one after another; a whole cohort of talented European scientists made a genuine chemical revolution. And against this enchanting background, the achievements of a researcher from distant and for many mysterious Russia were lost.
In our country, however, the conditions have not yet developed for the significance of Lovitz's discoveries to be properly understood and appreciated. Literally single nature-testers were professionally engaged in chemistry; their names are now known only to meticulous historians of science. In essence, systematic chemical research began in Russia in 1830-1840, when such luminaries as G.I. Hess, A.A. Voskresensky, N.N. Zinin. At the beginning of the century, Lovitz simply did not find successors to his work.
On the tombstone of Lovitz was engraved in no-Latin: “It is not enough for itself, for all of us it is a lot” (the stone disappeared somewhere already in our unlucky times). Perhaps, one could hardly have chosen better words for memory. They are like an epigraph to the life of a scientist, evidence that he adequately overcame this "moment called life."
