FEIGL, FRITZ

FEIGL, FRITZ (1891–1971), analytical chemist and a leader of the Brazilian Jewish community. Feigl was born in Vienna and served as an officer in the Austrian Army in World War I. He joined the staff of the Technische Hochschule in Vienna in the early 1920s and became professor of chemistry there in 1935. The Anschluss of 1938 forced him out of his position and he emigrated to Brazil, where in 1941 he became head of the Ministry of Agriculture's mineral production laboratory. In 1953 he was appointed professor of chemistry at the University of Brazil. In his work on chemical analysis and microanalysis Feigl specialized mainly in spot tests, on which he became a world authority. He was the main pioneer of new procedures in this field. His books include Spot Test Analysis (2 vols., 1934), Theory, Practice, and Uses of Spot Tests in Qualitative Analysis (1938), Laboratory Manual of Spot Tests (1944), and Chemistry of Specific Selective and Sensitive Reactions (1949). Feigl was active in communal and Zionist activities in Brazil, where he served as president of the Confederation of Jewish Federations. In 1951 he became a member of the world executive of the World Jewish Congress. He was a member of the board of governors of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Reḥovot. (Samuel Aaron Miller)