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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 2008  > November  >
In the Classroom
Percy Julian, Robert Robinson, and the Identity of Eserethole
Addison Ault
Department of Chemistry, Cornell College, Mount Vernon, IA 52314
Cover
November 2008
Vol. 85 No. 11
p. 1524
Abstract
The Nova production Percy Julian—Forgotten Genius included the very public disagreement between Percy Julian, an unknown American chemist, and Robert Robinson, possibly the best known organic chemist of the day, as to the identity of "eserethole", the key intermediate for the synthesis of the alkaloid physostigmine. The Nova production, however, left three important chemical questions left unanswered. The first unanswered question was: How was it possible that "eserethole" could be misidentified? Since Julian's eserethole was the "real eserethole", the second unanswered question was: What was the true identity of Robinson's "false eserethole"? The third unanswered question was: How could the "false eserethole" have been formed in Robinson's experiments? In this article I present the answers to the first two questions, and I offer a possible explanation for the third.

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More Information
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Citation
Ault, Addison. J. Chem. Educ. 2008, 85, 1524.
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Keywords
Constitutional Isomers; Enantiomers; History / Philosophy; Natural Products; Organic Chemistry; Second-Year Undergraduate; Stereochemistry; Synthesis; Textbooks / Reference Books; Upper-Division Undergraduate
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History
Created:
Last Updated:
9/19/2008
9/24/2008
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