JACOBSON, PAUL HENRICH

JACOBSON, PAUL HENRICH (1859–1923), German organic chemist. Jacobson was born in Koenigsberg and became professor of chemistry at Heidelberg University in 1889. His considerable contribution to scientific literature dealt mainly with azocompounds. With victor meyer , he wrote Lehrbuch der organischen Chemie (2 vols., 1893–1902), the standard textbook of its day. In 1897 he became the general secretary of the German Chemical Society and editor of its journal, Berichte der Deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, considered at the time the major chemical periodical in the world. In 1911 Jacobson transferred to the society's collective literature department, and edited the third edition of Beilstein's Handbuch der organischen Chemie, with 5 volumes of supplements, and the first eight volumes of the fourth edition. This encyclopedia of all known chemical compounds is in continuous use in research organizations all over the world. He also edited the further editions of Richter's Lexikon der Kohlenstoffverbindungen and the journal Chemisches Centralblatt. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: H.M. Smith, Torchbearers of Chemistry (1949), 128; Harries, in: Zeitschrift fuer angewandte Chemie (1923), 209–10. (Samuel Aaron Miller)