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Chemical Research and Instruction in Zürich, 1833-1872
Peter J. Ramberg a{ }^{a}
a{ }^{a} School of Science and Mathematics, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO, USA
Published online: 31 Mar 2015.
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To cite this article: Peter J. Ramberg (2015) Chemical Research and Instruction in Zürich, 1833-1872, Annals of Science, 72:2, 170-186, DOI: 10.1080/ 00033790.2015.1012229
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Chemical Research and Instruction in Zürich, 1833-1872
Essay in Honour of Alan J. Rocke
Peter J. Ramberg
School of Science and Mathematics, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO, USA
Email: ramberg@truman.edu
Received 28 November 2014. Revised paper accepted 21 January 2015
Summary
The development of universities and technical schools in nineteenth century Switzerland is commonly assumed to be similar to the development of comparable schools in Germany. To a large extent this is correct, but there are subtle differences in the founding and organization of Swiss institutions that are reflective of the Swiss national and local cantonal contexts. In the case of Zürich, the specific local political and financial conditions underlying the formation of the University of Zürich, the Zürich Cantonal School and the Swiss Federal Polytechnic resulted in a complex set of dual appointments and shared facilities that were absent at comparable chemical laboratories at German universities. This essay outlines the origins of these complex relationships under Carl Löwig (1833-1853) and Georg Städeler (1853-1870) and follows in more detail the complex career path of Johannes Wislicenus in Zürich from his appointment as Privatdozent in 1860 to his appointment as Director of the Polytechnic in 1871. Wislicenus’ career path illustrates the institutional context of chemistry in Zürich and shows how this context, including the roles of cantonal and federal support, and the physical constraints created by shared laboratory facilities, shaped chemical research and instruction in Zürich.
Contents
- Introduction … 170
- Institutions in Zürich … 171
2.1 Educational reforms in the Canton of Zürich … 171
2.2 The Swiss Federal Polytechnical Institute … 173
2.3 The Zürich Cantonal Laboratory … 175
3. Wislicenus in Zürich … 176
4. Teaching and research at the university, 1864-1871 … 179
5. At the polytechnic, 1871-1872 … 182
6. Conclusion … 183
1. Introduction
Prior to 1833, there were no venues in the city of Zürich for professional chemical training or research, but as part of a general reform of educational institutions in 1833, the Canton of Zürich had established a University, Cantonal school, and a veterinary school, all of which required instructors in chemistry. In 1854, the Swiss parliament authorized the organization of a Federal Polytechnical Institute in Zürich that would include a division of technical chemistry with chairs in both theoretical and technical chemistry. Although coming relatively late to the game, by the 1860 s, Zürich had a thriving
community of academic chemists that emerged under the direction of the first three professors of chemistry at the University: Carl Löwig (1833-1853), Georg Städeler (1853-1864), and Johannes Wislicenus (1864-1871).
The nineteenth century institutional context of chemistry in Zürich has remained unexplored by historians, and the existing literature has understandably assumed a resemblance between the structure of Swiss universities and the Polytechnic and their German counterparts. 1{ }^{1} The unique political structure of Switzerland in Europe as a cantonal federation, however, raises important questions about its support for science. Does closer examination of nineteenth century chemistry in Zürich support the assumption that Swiss institutions were similar to their German counterparts? In the case of Zürich, the assumption is generally correct, but the specific local political and financial conditions underlying the relationship between the University, Cantonal School and Polytechnic resulted in a complex set of dual appointments and shared facilities that were absent at comparable chemical laboratories at German universities.
The following essay outlines the origins of this complex relationship as it developed under Löwig and Städeler and then follows in more detail Wislicenus’ complex career path in Zürich during the 1860s. For two reasons, Wislicenus especially provides a convenient lens with which to examine relationships among the Zürich institutions involved in chemical teaching and research. First, the documentation surrounding Wislicenus’ activity in Zürich is more plentiful, allowing a more detailed picture of his interaction with University and Polytechnic administration. Second, unlike Löwig and Städeler, Wislicenus arrived in Zürich in 1859 as a Privatdozent and cobbled together income from all four institutions, accumulating and shedding positions throughout the 1860s, in the process climbing to the top of Zürich’s academic ladder when he was appointed Director of the Polytechnic in August of 1871. The details of his ascent make especially clear how the original allocations of faculty positions and instructional space directly affected the material and human resources available for chemistry in Zürich.
2. Institutions in Zürich
2.1 Educational reforms in the Canton of Zürich
In 1830, the Zürich Cantonal government initiated a reorganization and revitalization of its educational system following German systems of secondary and higher education. In the city of Zürich, they established a Cantonal school that was divided into two separate, but related institutions: a humanistic, classically oriented Gymnasium for the preparation of university students, and a School of Industry (Industrieschule), resembling the German Realschulen, that would emphasize science and mathematics and train students for technical and commercial professions. 2{ }^{2} The Gymnasium and the Industrieschule had different curricula - the Industrieschule emphasized modern languages, science and mathematics-but they did share some faculty for common subjects.
- 1{ }^{1} Chemistry in Zürich is treated in Conrad Hans Eugster, ‘150 Jahre Chemie an der Universität Zürich’, Chimia, 37 (1983), 1-44. An English translation also appears in Chimia, 2008, 62, 75-103. See also George B. Kauffman, Alfred Werner: Founder of Coordination Chemistry (Berlin, 1966). Two major edited volumes on the chemical profession in nineteenth century Europe do not include Switzerland: David Knight and Helge Kragh, editors, The Making of the Chemist: The Social History of Chemistry in Europe, 1789-1914. (Cambridge, 1998). Anita Kildebæk Nielsen and Sona Strbánová, Creating Networks in Chemistry: The Founding and Early History of Chemical Societies in Europe (Cambridge, UK, 2008).
2{ }^{2} Quadri Bruno and Bandle Max, Biografie einer Schule: von der Industrieschule über die Oberrealschule zum Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Gymnasium: ein Kapitel Zürcher Schulgeschichte (1832-1992) (Zürich, 1992), 9-13. ↩︎
The cantonal reorganization also included the creation of a new university in the city of Zürich, the first Swiss university since the founding of the University of Basel in 1460.31460 .{ }^{3} The university united the existing but previously unrelated theological, medical and legal schools with a new philosophical faculty, and following the German model, would draw properly trained students from the Gymnasia who had successfully completed the Maturitätsexam, and in turn would train teachers for the various Cantonal schools. 4{ }^{4} The University had a precarious existence during its first fifteen years, plagued by low enrolments and insufficient finances created by the initial decision of the Zürich educational council to emphasize the teaching at the Cantonal school over the university. This came at the expense of the philosophical faculty, who consisted nearly entirely of unpaid extraordinary professors and Privatdozenten who received paid appointments at the Cantonal school. The sole exception was the biologist Lorenz Oken, who was appointed as ‘Professor of General Natural History, Natural Philosophy and Human Physiology’, and the only member of the philosophical faculty to hold a full professorship and receive a salary from the university. The Baseler Zeitung, annoyed that the much older university in Basel now had competition in Switzerland, declared that a ‘university’ with only one full professor in the philosophical faculty was hardly worthy of the title. 5{ }^{5}
For the position in chemistry at the Industrieschule, authorities decided to call Löwig, a Privatdozent in Heidelberg who had studied pharmacy and chemistry under Leopold Gmelin. 6{ }^{6} Löwig accepted the position and on his own request, received an unpaid appointment as extraordinary professor at the University. 7{ }^{7} In 1836, he received an additional salary as extraordinary professor, and was eventually promoted to full professor, but until 1848, he remained responsible for teaching at both the University and the Industrieschule. In 1841, Löwig was joined by the Privatdozent Eduard Schweizer, a native Zürcher, and among the Industrieschule’s first students. Schweizer was immediately attracted to chemistry by Löwig’s lectures, and he served as Löwig’s assistant between 1836 and 1840 before his Habilitation. 8{ }^{8}
In 1853, Löwig accepted a call to Breslau as Robert Bunsen’s successor, and the faculty called Städeler from Göttingen, where he had earned his doctorate in 1846 under Friedrich Wöhler, and had been recently appointed extraordinary professor for his work in physiological chemistry. 9{ }^{9} The transition between Löwig and Städeler is illustrative of the emerging relationship between University and Industrieschule. Schweizer replaced Löwig as instructor at the Industrieschule and was also appointed extraordinary professor at the
- 3{ }^{3} Ernst Gagliardi et al., Die Universität Zürich 1833-1933 und ihre Vorläufer (Zürich, 1938); Derold Meyer von Knonau, ‘Die Universität Zürich in den Jahren 1883-1913’, in University of Zürich Festschrift: Des Regierungsrates Zur Einweihung der Neubauten 18. April 1914 (Zürich, 1914), 11-100; and Gordon A. Craig, The Triumph of Liberalism: Zürich in the Golden Age, 1830-1869 (New York, 1988).
4{ }^{4} Fritz Hunziker, Die Mittelschulen in Zürich und Winterthur, 1833-1933 (Zürich, 1933), 14, 17, Bruno and Max (note 2) 9-13, Craig (note 3), 127.
5{ }^{5} Craig (note 3), 137; Gagliardi (note 3), 294.
6{ }^{6} Hans Landolt, ‘Carl Löwig’, Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, 23 (1890), 906 Armin Wankmüller, ‘Löwig, Carl Jacob’, in Neue Deutsche Biographie (Berlin, 1987), vol. 15, 109-10.
7{ }^{7} Gagliardi (note 3), 295.
8{ }^{8} Anonymous, ‘Mathias Eduard Schweizer’, in Programm der Kantonsschule in Zürich (Zürich, 1861), 26-9; George B. Kauffman, ‘Eduard Schweizer (1818-1860): The Unknown Chemist and His Well-Known Reagent’, Journal of Chemical Education, 61 (1984): 1095-7; Eduard Schweizer to Erziehungsrath, June 26, 1841, Erziehungswesen statement, August 18, 1841, Staatsarchiv des Kantons Zürich (StAKZ), U110d.1, Folder 9.
9{ }^{9} Gagliardi (note 3), 572. Kraut, ‘Georg Staedeler’, Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, 4 (1871), 425-8; Bernhard Lepsius, ‘Städeler, Georg’, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 1893), vol. 35, 778-80. ↩︎
University. Städeler was appointed exclusively to the University faculty and had no teaching duties at the Industrieschule. 10{ }^{10}
In 1843, Schweizer had also been hired as the first instructor of chemistry at the Cantonal veterinary school, established in 1820. Its existence was initially precarious, but in 1834, as part of the cantonal educational reforms, it was made a permanent institution (although separately administered from the Cantonal schools and University), and chemistry, zoology, and botany were added to the curriculum. 11{ }^{11} In 1843, it was decided that specialists should teach botany and chemistry, and Schweizer was hired to teach inorganic and organic chemistry. 12{ }^{12} The veterinary school was the least well-supported of the cantonal educational institutions in Zürich. The instructors in the ancillary sciences were always drawn from the Industrieschule and given temporary contracts, as the positions themselves were only provisional. By the mid-1850s, the school’s existence was again in doubt, when Schweizer and the new director of the school, Rudolf Zangger, successfully convinced the cantonal educational council that the school should be supported more vigorously. They argued that it could be linked to the newly formed Polytechnic, and that scientifically trained veterinarians were important for Swiss agriculture and the welfare of the Swiss cavalry. 13{ }^{13} As a result, the three faculty positions in chemistry, physics and biology were made permanent and regularly funded, and chemistry instruction was expanded to three years in the curriculum.
2.2 The Swiss Federal Polytechnical Institute
Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, Swiss liberals had dreamed of forming a national university, and the University of Zürich was formed in the hope that a national university would be created from an existing institution. 14{ }^{14} The new Swiss constitution of 1848 allowed the creation of a national university and a polytechnical institute, and in 1854, the Swiss parliament approved the formation of a federal polytechnic in Zürich. Under the guidance of the industrialist Alfred Escher, a federal commission organized the new Institute after the Karlsruhe Polytechnic, which Escher had visited personally. 15{ }^{15} Escher and the committee explicitly rejected the centralized model of the French Ecolé Polytechnique, with its emphasis on military discipline and an intense mathematical core curriculum for all students, in favour of the divisional structure of the Karlsruhe Polytechnic with separate faculty and curricula for each division. 16{ }^{16} Like the Ecole Polytechnique, the Polytechnic served the Swiss state by creating qualified engineers, but it was also oriented more directly towards meeting the needs of the
- 10{ }^{10} Erziehungswesen to Regierungsrath, March 30, 1853, StAKZ, U110b.1, Folder 10.
11{ }^{11} Peter Storck, Die Anfänge der Tierarzneischule in Zürich, Inaugural-Dissertation, University of Zürich, 1977. Jörg Hohl, Die Entwicklung der Zürcher Tierarzneischule in den Jahren 1834 bis 1855, InauguralDissertation, University of Zürich, 1979, 10-11.
12{ }^{12} Hohl (note 11), 38-9, 41
13{ }^{13} Christian Senn, Die Entwicklung der Zürcher Tierarzneischule in den Jahren 1856 bis 1882, InauguralDissertation, University of Zürich, 1981, 6-7.
14{ }^{14} Determined not to be outdone, the rival Canton of Bern also established a university in 1834 with similar aspirations for it becoming a Swiss national university.
15{ }^{15} Wilhelm Oechsli, Geschichte der Gründung des Eidgenössische Polytechnikum mit einer Übersicht seiner Entwickelung 1855-1905 (Frauenfeld, 1905), 75.
16{ }^{16} Anna Guagnini, ‘Technology’, in Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries edited by Walter Rüegg, (Cambridge, 2004), vol. III, 593-635; Karl-Heinz Manegold, ‘Geschichte der Technischen Hochschule’, in Technik und Bildung edited by Laetitia Boehm and Charlotte Schönbeck, (Göttingen, 1989), 204-34; Mary Jo Nye, ‘Recent Sources and Problems in the History of French Science’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 13 (1983): 401-15; Terry Shinn, L’École Polytechnique: 1794-1914. Savoir scientifique et pouvoir social (Paris, 1980). ↩︎
growing Swiss industry. Whereas the Ecole Polytechnque was directed explicitly and exclusively inward, consisting almost entirely of French students and French faculty, the Swiss Polytechnic quickly developed an international reputation, recruiting pupils and faculty from all over Europe.
The Swiss Federal Polytechnic would have five separate divisions: architecture and construction, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, technical chemistry and forestry. A sixth division contained the remnants of the liberal’s dream of a national university-a small humanistic school consisting of modern languages, mathematics, natural science, general and art history, Swiss law and economics. The administrative structure of the new institute reflected its purpose as an instrument of the federal state, where teaching and learning freedom would be constrained towards a specific national goal. The administrative head of the Polytechnic would be the Director, chosen from among the faculty by the Swiss School Council (a body newly created to oversee the Polytechnic), not by the faculty, and each division also had a representative chosen by the school council. 17{ }^{17} Faculty had relative academic freedom, but did not have the power to recommend new faculty. The Polytechnic would not have ‘students’ (Studenten) who would follow their own interests under the principle of Lehrfreiheit, but ‘pupils’ (Schüler), who would follow a specific, prescribed curriculum and pass exams at each level. Academic progress was monitored with obligatory tutorials and exams, and pupils could be disciplined for disobedience or delinquency. 18{ }^{18}
Faculty members at the Polytechnic were better paid, and had better facilities than those at the university, but their positions, particularly those in engineering, did not carry the same cachet as a university appointment. Teaching at the Polytechnic, especially in the sixth division, nearly always involved a conflict between the ideals of scholarship and practical applications. The school council attempted to bridge this gap by making fifteen joint appointments, many in the natural sciences, between the Polytechnic and the University. 19{ }^{19} Hiring established professors from the university granted the Polytechnic some prestige, and saved money for the cash-strapped university. Escher and the first president of the school council, Johann Kern, had previously been strong proponents of a national university, and they had hoped that these dual appointments might eventually merge the university and Polytechnic into a single institution. But when Karl Kappeler became president of the council in 1859, he saw this vision in conflict with the purpose of the Polytechnic. He perceived that the professors with university appointments continued to teach with the university, rather than the Polytechnic in mind. He also believed that university students attending the Polytechnic were a bad influence on the discipline of the Polytechnic students, and began slowly to break ties to the university by leaving joint professorships unfilled, and by not allowing faculty to hold appointments elsewhere without permission of the school council. In 1863, university students were no longer allowed to enrol in Polytechnic courses outside of the sixth division.
For the chemistry division, the planning commission originally envisioned three chairs, one in technical chemistry, one in general and theoretical chemistry, and a position explicitly reserved for a French speaking chemist that went unfilled when they called Charles Gerhardt but could not meet his demands. 20{ }^{20} They advertised faculty openings all
- 17{ }^{17} Oechsli (note 15), 157.
18{ }^{18} David Gugerli et al., Transforming the Future: ETH Zürich and the Construction of Modern Switzerland, 1855-2005 (Zürich, 2010), 92.
19{ }^{19} Gugerli (note 18), 68.
20{ }^{20} Oechsli (note 15), 185. ↩︎
over Europe, but the council was impressed by Städeler at the university and chose to appoint him Professor of Theoretical Chemistry. Städeler would be paid by the Polytechnic, but hold a joint appointment between the Polytechnic and the University, holding lectures and supervising the laboratory for both. For the position in technical chemistry, the Polytechnic chose Alexander Bolley, a member of the Polytechnic’s organizing committee and Professor of Chemistry at the Cantonal school in Aarau.
2.3 The Zürich Cantonal Laboratory
Before Löwig arrived in 1833, there had been no tradition of chemical research in Zürich, and the conditions for research were poor. 21{ }^{21} The new laboratory for the Cantonal School and the University was located in the Carolinum, a building that had originally housed the theological school. Löwig had no assistants and a completely inadequate building manager (Abwart) for assistance in lectures and laboratories. 22{ }^{22} Löwig initially coped with these conditions by choosing projects that required relatively little equipment, such as analysing Swiss mineral waters and writing a textbook, Chemie der organischen Verbindungen (1839), the first comprehensive systematic presentation of carbon compounds that served ‘as the “Beilstein” of the time’. 23{ }^{23} In 1842, Löwig moved into a new laboratory located in the new Cantonal School building on Rämistrasse (called hereafter the Cantonal laboratory) that would serve the students of the Industrieschule, the University, and the veterinary school until 1887. A drawing of the main laboratory (Figure 1) from the early 1850s shows that it consisted of a central fume hood surrounded by workbenches with a capacity of about twenty students.
This new laboratory significantly improved Löwig’s material conditions, allowing him to resume research in organic chemistry. In 1850, he began an extensive research program on organometallic compounds involving students in the Zürich laboratory, a project comparable in scope and results to the better known work of Edward Frankland. 24{ }^{24} By 1850, Löwig had established a significant research-teaching laboratory with approximately twenty students, about half the size of Liebig’s and Wöhler’s laboratories, but with eight more students than Kolbe in Marburg, and almost twice the number of Gmelin’s students in Heidelberg before Bunsen’s arrival in 1852.251852 .{ }^{25} The size of the Zürich laboratory was therefore comparable in size with prominent German laboratories of the period.
When Städeler inherited this laboratory in 1853, it was already cramped and inadequate, and the opening of the Polytechnic in 1855 led to additional overcrowding, since the Polytechnic pupils also used the Kantonsschule laboratory, relegating Schweizer and his Industrieschule students to the cellar. 26{ }^{26} Despite these conditions, Städeler managed to continue a productive research program on physiological chemistry. Städeler
- 21{ }^{21} Landolt (note 6), 906.
22{ }^{22} Gagliardi (note 3), 295.
23{ }^{23} Carl Löwig, Chemie der organischen Verbindungen 2 vols. (Zürich, 1839). The reference to the “Beilstein of its time” is from Landolt (note 6), 906-7.
24{ }^{24} Colin A. Russell, Edward Frankland: Chemistry, Controversy and Conspiracy in Victorian England (Cambridge, 1996), 106.
25{ }^{25} Frederic L. Holmes, ‘The Complementarity of Teaching and Research in Liebig’s Laboratory’, Osiris, 5 (1989): 121-64, 162. Alan J. Rocke, The Quiet Revolution: Hermann Kolbe and the Science of Organic Chemistry (Berkeley, 1993), 20, 211. Walter Wetzel, “Origins of and Education and Career Opportunities for the Profession of ‘Chemist’ in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century,” in Knight and Kragh (note 1), 80-1.
26{ }^{26} Anonymous (note 8), 27-8. Bolley’s laboratory was initially located in the Carolinum. ↩︎
Figure 1. The Kantonsschule Laboratory, ca 1850. Löwig is on the left with the sideburns and cigarette. Schweizer is in the middle wearing the cap. Image courtesy of the Archives, Organic Chemistry Institute, University of Zürich.
and Bolley designed and oversaw construction of a new chemistry laboratory for the Polytechnic, the Polytechnic’s first building, funded jointly by the canton of Zürich and the Swiss federation. 27{ }^{27} It was completed for the summer semester of 1861 on Rämistrasse just north of the Kantonsschule building. It consisted of two wings, laid along a northsouth axis along Rämistrasse, with Städeler’s analytical portion occupying the northern half and Bolley’s technical portion on the southern half (Figure 2). There were 30 workplaces for technical chemistry and 36 places for analytical, which almost immediately was expanded to forty. This is comparable in size to the technical school in Karlsruhe, which also averaged about 40 chemistry students a semester between 1855 and 1870.281870 .{ }^{28}
3. Wislicenus in Zürich
Wislicenus arrived in Zürich by a rather circuitous route. A Prussian by birth, he had renounced his citizenship in 1853 at the age of eighteen when his family emigrated to the United States for religious freedom. After two years in Boston and New York, the
- 27{ }^{27} Bericht über das eidgenössische Polytechnikum betreffend das Jahr 1861 (Zürich, 1861), 16.
28{ }^{28} Bericht (note 27), 8; Wetzel (note 25), 80-1. Peter Borscheid, Naturwissenschaft, Staat und Industrie in Baden (1848-1914) (Stuttgart, 1976), 232. ↩︎
Figure 2. The new Polytechnic chemistry laboratory building, completed in 1861. Image courtesy of the Archives, Organic Chemistry Institute, University of Zürich.
Wislicenus family returned to Europe and chose to live in Zürich because of its tradition of offering asylum to political refugees. Wislicenus returned to his native Halle in 1857, where in 1859 he completed the work for his dissertation and Habilitation with Wilhelm Heintz, but he chose to return to Zürich where he would formally submit his work for promotion and Habilitation. 29{ }^{29}
When he arrived in Zürich, the Cantonal School laboratory served as an instructional and research laboratory for four institutions, and the principal chemists in Zürich were Städeler, Bolley and Schweizer. Wislicenus became Privatdozent at the university and Polytechnic in February and March, respectively, and began to offer courses in the summer of 1860 . In the fall, however, Schweizer became gravely ill and died unexpectedly in October. Wislicenus was the only suitable candidate available, and took over Schweizer’s courses at the veterinary school and the Industrieschule. 30{ }^{30} In February 1861, he was officially appointed as the instructor at the veterinary school. 31He{ }^{31} \mathrm{He} was also appointed Director of the chemical collection for the cantonal school and university, and
- 29{ }^{29} Ernst Beckmann, ‘Johannes Wislicenus’, Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, 37 (1904), 4861-946; Paul R. Jones, ‘Man of Conviction’, Chemistry in Britain, May (2002): 40-1; Paul R. Jones, ‘The Young Johannes Wislicenus in America’, Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, 20 (1997), 28-32; Peter J. Ramberg, Chemical Structure, Spatial Arrangement: The Early History of Stereochemistry, 1874-1914 (Aldershot, 2003); Peter J. Ramberg, ‘Johannes Wislicenus, Atomism, and the Philosophy of Chemistry: A Translation and Commentary’, Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, 15/16 (1994), 45-53.
30{ }^{30} Zschetzche to Erziehungswesen, October 17, 1860, StAKZ, U87.3.
31{ }^{31} Erziehungswesen statement, February 13, 1861, StAKZ, U112.b.1. ↩︎
in April 1862, he was appointed as the full-time ‘Professor’ of chemistry and mineralogy at the Industrieschule. 32{ }^{32}
At the Industrieschule, Wislicenus was responsible for teaching mineralogy and a three year sequence of chemistry. Students took three hours of chemistry a week during the first year, four hours of inorganic chemistry and six hours of laboratory the second year, and three hours of organic chemistry and laboratory the third year. There were about thirty first-year students, about 17 second-year students and less than ten third-year students. 33{ }^{33} Although Wislicenus’ initial contract at the Industrieschule was for 15 instructional hours per week, the surviving programs and schedules indicate that his total instructional time was probably closer to 18-21 hours per week, with a complicated, irregular schedule. Chemistry was taught in the last three years of instruction, so the Industrieschule students were usually slightly younger than university students, and ranged from 16 to 19 years old.
Teaching at the veterinary school required less effort as it had no significant laboratory component and met at a consistent time four days a week. 34{ }^{34} The students at the veterinary school were on average slightly younger than those at the Industrieschule, about 15 or 16 years old, and the total number of students at the school varied from 21 in summer 1862 to 38 in summer 1865. Because students took chemistry during the first and second year of a three year curriculum, enrolment in chemistry was likely about 10-20 students per year. 35{ }^{35} Between the Industrieschule and the veterinary school alone, Wislicenus’ total instructional time was probably between 22 and 25 hours per week, with approximately 50-60 students. Any university lectures added still more students and instructional time, and the Polytechnic, furthermore, had hired Wislicenus to teach five weekly hours of remedial inorganic chemistry. 36{ }^{36} This schedule appears daunting, and would have been nearly impossible to meet its demands if the courses were not all located in the Cantonal School building. The summer course at the Polytechnic was likely in the Polytechnic laboratory, but that was only a five minute walk north on Rämistrasse.
In 1864, as part of Kappeler’s move to separate instruction at the Polytechnic from the university, Städeler’s position was made exclusive to the Polytechnic, and his courses would no longer be available to university students. 37{ }^{37} Wislicenus was appointed extraordinary professor as Städeler’s successor, making him the de facto Ordinarius at the university, increasing his enrolments and student fees significantly. 38He{ }^{38} \mathrm{He} requested and was granted a release from his position at the veterinary school, but he did not resign his position at the Industrieschule and the two positions became combined again, as they had been under Löwig.
Immediately after his 1864 appointment, Wislicenus requested and was granted an assistant and an intern, but the winter semester of 1864-1865 proved especially taxing, and the coming summer semester would require additional hours of instruction at the
- 32{ }^{32} Instructors at the Industrieschule were usually given the title of Professor. Aufsichtskommission der Industrieschule to Erziehungswesen, April 12, 1862, StAKZ, U89b.1. Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, May 6, 1862, U110d.1, Folder 25.
33{ }^{33} Curricular information and enrolment numbers are taken from the annual Kantonsschule programs. Programm der Kantonsschule Zürich auf das Schuljahr 1860-1861, (Zürich, 1861).
34{ }^{34} Stundenplan, StAKZ U112d.1, Senn (note 13) 28-31.
35{ }^{35} Senn (note 13) 27, 49.
36{ }^{36} Sitzung der Shulrathsprotokoll, August 8 and August 15, 1861, ETH Bibliothek, ETH Archive, SR2:1861.
37{ }^{37} Erziehungswesen to philosophical faculty, January 20, 1864, Erziehungswesen statement, February 17, 1864, StAKZ, U110b.1, Folder 17.
38{ }^{38} Otto Heer (Dekan) to Erziehungswesen, January 24, 1864, StAKZ, U110b.1, Folder 17. ↩︎
University and Industrieschule. Wislicenus requested a release from teaching mineralogy, ‘on consideration of my health and vigour’. 39{ }^{39} The authorities agreed, and hired Armin Baltzer, Wislicenus’ assistant and former student, to teach mineralogy. 40{ }^{40} Wislicenus also rejected the medical faculty’s request to teach pharmaceutical chemistry, because ‘I have this dual appointment that gives me so much work, with the most strenuous activity, that I don’t think I can continue for long in this place-I am barely able to satisfy the demands of my positions’. He requested a release from the elementary chemistry course at the Industrieschule, but it was not granted. 41{ }^{41}
In January 1866, Wislicenus again requested to be released from the elementary chemistry course at the Industrieschule. 42{ }^{42} He recommended Baltzer for the position and requested a second assistant to compensate for Baltzer’s increased teaching load. This request was granted, but even if the Canton agreed to Wislicenus’ request, it was still getting a bargain with Wislicenus, who had been assigned the duties of full professor, but without the title or salary, and he was still required to teach at the Industrieschule. As he wrote to Emil Erlenmeyer in 1864, it wasn’t possible to ‘leap over’ (überspringen) the extraordinary professorship to an Ordinarius, and he must put in his time for promotion, if it came at all. 43{ }^{43} But finally, in December 1867, Wislicenus was promoted to full professor, received a substantial salary increase, and was fully released from his position at the Industrieschule, to be succeeded by Baltzer. 44{ }^{44} For the first time in six years, Wislicenus held only one teaching position.
4. Teaching and research at the university, 1864-1871
During the 1860 s, the university saw a significant increase in attendance in both lecture and laboratory. Städeler had averaged about 25 students each semester, but during Wislicenus’ tenure, enrolment steadily increased, peaking in the summer of 1870 with 67 students in organic chemistry. 45{ }^{45} There was also a general increase in laboratory attendance, consisting primarily of medical and chemistry students, but also a small number of Industrieschule pupils and teaching candidates. 46{ }^{46} Attendance peaked at 58 students during 1867-1868, dropped for two years and increased significantly in the summer of 1869 , when Wislicenus introduced a ‘half-laboratory’ (Halbpraktikum) for the medical students that helped to relieve the overcrowding in the laboratory. 47{ }^{47}
In addition to the increased enrolment in the lecture and laboratory during the 1860s, there was an additional increase in the number of advanced students in Wislicenus’ laboratory. We saw above that Wislicenus obtained two assistants and an intern to help with laboratory instruction. In his annual report for 1865, Wislicenus noted that aside from Baltzer and his intern, there were ‘five men occupied with independent work’ in the laboratory. 48{ }^{48} In the summer of 1866, he was also joined by two Privatdozenten,
- 39{ }^{39} Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, March 12, 1865, StAKZ, U89c.
40{ }^{40} Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, March 12, 1865, StAKZ, U89c.
41{ }^{41} Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, March 17, 1865, StAKZ, U110.1.
42{ }^{42} Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, January 18, 1866, StAKZ, U89c.1.
43{ }^{43} Wislicenus to Erlenmeyer, November 27, 1864, Dingler Nachlaß, Aschaffenburg.
44{ }^{44} Regierungsrath to Erziehungswesen, December 14, 1867, StAKZ, U110.b.1, Folder 17.
45{ }^{45} StAKZ, U99.1 Allgemeines Vorlesungsverzeichnisse. Bd. 1, 1838-1910, Bd II SS1835-WS1863/64.
46{ }^{46} Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, January 31, 1866 and January 31, 1868, StAKZ, U118.1.
47{ }^{47} Wislicenus, Vorschlag, January 12, 1869, StAKZ, U118.1.
48{ }^{48} Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, January 31, 1866, StAKZ U118.1. ↩︎
Victor Merz (1839-1904) and Wilhelm Weith (1846-1881), both graduates of the Polytechnic.
Merz had studied chemistry under Schweizer at the Industrieschule and enrolled in the Polytechnic in 1857, where he was inspired by Städeler’s lectures. He completed his dissertation in 1864 and became Privatdozent in 1866 at both the university and the Polytechnic. 49{ }^{49} Merz originally worked in Städeler’s Polytechnic laboratory, but moved to the University laboratory after a falling out with Städeler. 50{ }^{50} Merz’ interests in aromatic chemistry complemented Wislicenus’ own experience in aliphatic compounds, and was also a strong proponent of the new structural chemistry emerging in the 1860s, and therefore fit better intellectually into Wislicenus’ group.
Weith had joined Wislicenus’ University laboratory one year earlier in the summer of 1865. He had also been a student at the Polytechnic who attended Bolley’s lectures and worked with Wislicenus at the Industrieschule. He obtained his doctorate in Heidelberg in early 1865, and returned to Zürich where he began independent research in Wislicenus’ laboratory. 51{ }^{51} Weith submitted a project on the nitroprussides for Habilitation in May of 1866, and over the objections by Städeler, with Wislicenus’ support the faculty granted Weith the status of Privatdozent. 52{ }^{52} Merz and Weith became close friends and collaborators, although they would seem to be an unlikely pair; Merz was a loner and introvert who spent nearly all his time at the laboratory bench, while Weith had an extroverted, quick-witted personality, and gave enthusiastic, loud lectures. But between 1868 and 1881, the two were inseparable in the laboratory and coauthored 31 papers, and added a significant number of courses to the university and the Polytechnic.
Between 1860 and 1872, there were nineteen dissertations awarded in chemistry at the university, seven of them directed by Städeler. On average, students working under Städeler completed their dissertations at the rate of about one per year. The number of advanced students had increased under Wislicenus, and as a result, he began to overtake Städeler in the production of Doktoranden. Between 1866 and 1870, three students completed their dissertations under Städeler, while Wislicenus had a total of nine Doktoranden. Putting the numbers of advanced students together, we can get a reasonable estimate of the size of the university laboratory during the 1860s. Under Städeler, there was one Privatdozent (Wislicenus), no assistants for the university laboratories, and two assistants for the Polytechnic laboratory, who may have also served as de facto assistants for the university, as they shared facilities. This meant that there were a total of four advanced workers in the laboratory in 1861, not including Doktoranden. Since Städeler did not average more than one Doktorand per year, the total number of advanced members of the laboratory was probably no more than five or six. In 1861, the two assistants for the Polytechnic left the Kantonsschule laboratory for the new Polytechnic. By 1865, when Wislicenus reported five chemists in addition to himself and two assistants, he had surpassed Städeler in the number of advanced students. In 1866, when
- 49{ }^{49} Alfred Werner and Otto Meister, ‘Victor Merz’, Verhandlungen der Schweizerischen naturforschenden Gesellschaft, 87 (1905), LX-CII, Victor Merz, Curriculum Vita, 1866, StAKZ, U110d.1, Folder 30.
50{ }^{50} Städeler had assured Merz that he would not need to do a trial lecture for his Habilitation at the university. This turned out not to be the case, and Merz had insufficient time to prepare. Werner and Meister (note 49), LXIV.
51{ }^{51} Wilhelm Weith, curriculum vita, May 31, 1866, StAKZ, U110d.1. Victor Meyer, ‘Wilhelm Weith’, Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, 15 (1882), 3291-309.
52{ }^{52} Kenngott to Erziehungswesen, July 19, 1866, and Erziehungswesen Statement, August 7, 1866, StAKZ, U110d.1, Folder 32. ↩︎
Merz and Weith joined the laboratory, the number had likely increased to seven, including Wislicenus, but not Doktoranden.
If we add Doktoranden and other known members of the laboratory-nine students named as coauthors in papers between 1865 and 1872 - there is a total of nineteen known advanced students in the university laboratory between approximately 1862 and 1872. This averages about two advanced students per year over ten years, making an average of nine advanced members of the laboratory, including Wislicenus. It is likely there were other students who stayed at the laboratory and left without publication or completing a dissertation, making the average number nine or ten members at any one time, or approximately double the number working under Städeler. Wislicenus also encouraged his students to publish their dissertations as articles under their own name, and his students authored eighteen papers in the Annalen der Chemie in some form, either as an independent paper, or as an independently written section of a longer multi-part article. Wislicenus’ own publications appeared in short bursts in 1862-63 and 1868-69, but his total output ( 29 papers) was nearly twice that of Städeler ( 15 papers). Merz and Weith were also extremely productive, producing five solo papers each, and fourteen co-written papers between 1868 and 1872.
The general increase in the numbers of beginning and advanced students in chemistry inevitably strained the Cantonal laboratory that had been built for only twenty students. Immediately on his 1864 appointment, Wislicenus began lobbying the educational council for improvement and expansion of the Cantonal laboratory, requesting additional assistants and funds for necessary apparatus and remodelling the space. Until 1869, the laboratory ran continuous deficits, and his annual budget was insufficient to both run the laboratory and acquire any necessary new equipment. Wislicenus’ struggle with the laboratory budget during the 1860s was primarily a continuation of the traditionally low budgets endured by Löwig and Städeler that were reflective of the relatively poorly funded university itself. Wislicenus noted several times to the authorities that the facilities and funding of the laboratory were inadequate. His requests were modest, comparable to budgets and facilities of smaller institutes in Germany, but it was a struggle to catch up with them, since ‘All recently formed institutes, at their opening were completely outfitted, while our institute in 1864 can only be furnished with the absolutely necessary [items]’. 53{ }^{53}
The need for more space and funding finally reached a head in October of 1868, when Baltzer requested a reorganization of the Cantonal laboratory that would give him more independence. Wislicenus used this opportunity to argue that the current situation was untenable. There was no space for separate collections of chemicals or equipment for the cantonal school. The only way to end the ‘present mischief’ (vorhandenen Übelstände) was a complete separation of the location, equipment, and materials of the two schools. The veterinary school was also threatening to increase the number of student hours in the laboratory, and Wislicenus feared the university students would become third in line for laboratory space, ‘significantly damaging their own needs, …\ldots in consequence of which my teaching at our university would appear hopeless’. 54{ }^{54} There is no surviving reply to this urgent request, but later that year, Wislicenus finally gained some leverage when he received a call from the University of Basel, who lured him with a new building, a considerably higher salary, and, as he put it, fewer students with higher skills. After a
- 53{ }^{53} Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, January 31, 1866, StAKZ U118.1.
54{ }^{54} Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, October 16, 1868, StAKZ, U118.1. ↩︎
month of negotiations, Wislicenus decided to remain in Zürich, with the promise of complete financial and physical separation of the two laboratories.
The conditions for remaining in Zürich allowed Wislicenus the freedom to purchase necessary equipment and renovate and expand the laboratory space from twenty to 32 workplaces. 55He{ }^{55} \mathrm{He} also argued for establishing a new extraordinary professorship at the university, appealing to the custom at German universities of promoting current successful Privatdozenten to extraordinary professor and noting that Merz and Weith had established themselves as very capable chemists and teachers. Because Weith had found a relatively secure position lecturing at the Polytechnic, Wislicenus suggested that Merz be appointed extraordinary professor, specializing in pharmaceutical and analytical chemistry. 56{ }^{56} Merz was appointed in November 1869, finally restoring the arrangement that existed when Wislicenus arrived in 1860, when Städeler and Schweizer were ordinary and extraordinary professors.
5. At the polytechnic, 1871-1872
In September 1870, Städeler was forced to retire from the Polytechnic after nearly a decade of poor health. 57{ }^{57} The Swiss School Council President, Karl Kappeler, was familiar with Wislicenus and his growing reputation, and offered Wislicenus the chair of theoretical chemistry at the Polytechnic. In a letter to Kappeler, Wislicenus expressed his gratitude and enthusiasm for an appointment at the Polytechnic, which offered a ‘blossoming and renovated facility, an honourable and influential position, the direction and use of a beautiful, on the whole well equipped laboratory, and offers a comparatively high and solid income’. Yet the university had advantages that he could ‘not undervalue, and that, on moving to the Polytechnic, I must almost completely give up’. The primary drawback was the rigorous prescribed set of courses, and the loss of academic freedom that made universities so successful. Wislicenus therefore asked to retain the title of professor at the university, so that he could direct research and make elective courses available to university students. He wrote later that the ability to remain on the university faculty was the most important factor in accepting the position. 58{ }^{58} In December 1870, the Council granted his request, and Wislicenus began his duties in April 1871. 59{ }^{59} After only a semester on the faculty, he accepted the offer by the Swiss School Council to become the new Director of the Polytechnic, for which he would receive a supplemental salary of 1500 Francs and significant administrative duties, but no reduction in his teaching hours.
In some respects, the move to the Polytechnic made little difference in Wislicenus’ teaching, as he would continue to lecture on inorganic chemistry and qualitative analysis in the winter semester, and organic chemistry in the summer semester. The Polytechnic had the advantage that Wislicenus would not need to repeat the struggle to reduce his teaching load, and Städeler already had funds for two laboratory assistants with better compensation than the university. Funding for the laboratory, however, had not kept up with the increased enrolment. When it opened in 1861, the new Polytechnic laboratory was already too small with 36 workspaces, and Städeler ran a deficit for at least six of the
- 55{ }^{55} Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, January 13, 1869, Wislicenus, Voranschlag, January 13, 1869, Wislicenus, Inventarische Anschaffungen 1869, StAKZ, U118.1.
56{ }^{56} Wislicenus to Erziehungswesen, May 15, 1869, and October 29, 1869, StAKZ, U110b.1, Folder 18.
57{ }^{57} Kraut, Lepsius (note 9).
58{ }^{58} Wislicenus to Kappeler, December 8, 1870, ETH Bibliothek, Archive, SR3:1870.525, Wislicenus to Wilhelm Vischer-Bilfig, 18 January 1871, Staatsarchiv der Basel-Stadt (StABS), PA 511 611-17-05.
59{ }^{59} Kappeler to Bundesrath, December 13, 1870, ETH Bibliothek, Archive, SR1:1870.135. ↩︎
years between 1859 and 1869 to meet the demands of the increasing enrolment. 60{ }^{60} The council covered these deficits, but warned Städeler to avoid deficits of any size in the future, as they would no longer guarantee they would be covered. The only solution was either to cover deficits with future budgets, or increase student fees. 61{ }^{61}
Wislicenus also found the Polytechnic laboratory deficient in a number of other respects. Städeler’s private workroom was extremely small, there was an insufficient number of gas lines for the number of students, and the workplaces were not consistently stocked with equipment. The most urgent problem, he noted, was the disorganized state of the chemical collection, dispersed throughout various locations in the building, with many unusable chemicals, many others missing and still others appeared false (unächt). All would need to be properly stored in stoppered jars, a task that had taken him eight years to complete at the university. 62{ }^{62} He was immediately granted 6500 Francs to alleviate these problems. In 1871, laboratory enrolment ballooned again to over 60 students and Wislicenus scrambled to outfit twenty more workplaces in the cellar. 63{ }^{63} In July of 1871, Wislicenus requested an increase in the state subsidy for the laboratory, noting that the Polytechnic laboratory had long been insufficiently funded. The Polytechnic laboratory budget was nominally higher than the university’s, but that amount was intended to pay basic costs of gas and heating in addition to laboratory expenses, whereas the Canton had paid these expenses separately for the university laboratory. Wislicenus noted that the demands on the Polytechnic laboratory would only increase with a pending requirement that chemistry pupils and the pupils in the science education division have both an additional semester of chemistry with an increase of required weekly hours, causing a sharp increase in Praktikanten even without a general increase in attendance. 64{ }^{64}
Wislicenus therefore requested an increase in the laboratory’s annual budget from 2400 to 5000 Francs, together with an increase of laboratory fees to bring in an additional 3500 Francs. 65{ }^{65} This would provide enough funds for gas and heating, as well as the costs of increased enrolment. Thus, the analytical laboratory, ‘which probably has achieved the largest attendance of all the present analogous institutes, will still remain very moderately well-off, as the larger institutes in Germany receive much greater support’. 66{ }^{66} This request was approved, and in its annual report for 1872, the council reported that under the ‘excellent’ (treffliche) direction of Wislicenus, ‘The outfitting of the laboratory has greatly improved.’ They made note of the new gas lines and the newly organized, bottled and labelled chemical collection, with over 500 new samples. 67{ }^{67}
6. Conclusion
As we have seen, the institutional structure of chemical research and instruction in Zürich bears some similarity to German institutions. The Cantonal School and University were explicitly founded on the German model, with the university emphasizing academic freedom and incorporating a similar faculty structure. The Polytechnic was modelled after
- 60{ }^{60} Städeler-Schulrat correspondence, 1860-1866, ETH Bibliothek, Archive, SR1.
61{ }^{61} Schulrat to Städeler, February 10, 1870, ETH Bibliothek, Archive, SR1:1870.35.
62{ }^{62} Wislicenus to Kappeler, February 6, 1871, ETH Bibliothek, Archive, SR3:1870.53a; Kappeler to Wislicenus, March 29, 1871, ETH Bibliothek, Archive, SR1:1871.26.
63{ }^{63} Wislicenus to Kappeler, March 15, 1872, ETH Bibliothek, Archive, SR3:1872.76
64{ }^{64} Wislicenus to Kappeler, July 21, 1871, ETH Bibliothek, Archive, SR3:1871.275.
65{ }^{65} Wislicenus to Kappeler, July 21, 1871, ETH Bibliothek, Archive, SR3:1871.275.
66{ }^{66} Wislicenus to Kappeler, July 21, 1871, ETH Bibliothek, Archive, SR3:1871.275.
67{ }^{67} Bericht der eidgenössische Polytechnikum über das Jahr 1872 (Zürich, 1872), 11. ↩︎
Karlsruhe with its divisional structure and more restricted academic freedom for both faculty and students. Although the Polytechnic did attempt somewhat unsuccessfully to accommodate French-speaking Switzerland, like the university, it remained within the sphere of German-speaking universities, with many faculty recruited from Germany itself. By the mid to late 1840s, Löwig had a well-established teaching/research laboratory similar in size to those in Giessen and Göttingen, and the growth in enrolment in the Zürich laboratories, the construction of the Polytechnic laboratory in 1861, and the renovations of the university laboratory in 1869 all parallel closely the rapid growth of chemical institutes in Germany during the 1860s. 68{ }^{68} In their correspondence with cantonal and federal authorities, both Löwig and Wislicenus explicitly saw German universities as their point of comparison and competition; Wislicenus specifically wanted to make Zürich’s laboratory one of the best among the ‘German’ universities, and he repeatedly argued that comparable German laboratories were better funded and equipped. 69{ }^{69} Of course, this was in part a rhetorical move on Wislicenus’ part, to justify increased spending on the laboratory, but as we have seen, the university laboratories were chronically underfunded and understaffed throughout the 1860s.
Despite these obvious similarities to the German system, we cannot overlook the unique character of the institutional relationships in Zürich. The physical proximity of the university and Polytechnic in the same city, with dual appointments and a shared chemical laboratory, resulted in arrangements that occurred rarely, if at all, in the German system. In Germany, universities and polytechnical schools did not exist in the same city, with the exception of Berlin and Munich, where appointments and facilities were kept separate. The presence of the Polytechnic also certainly made Zürich unique among Swiss cantons with a university and made a larger chemical community possible-chemistry in Basel, Bern, and Geneva, supported exclusively with cantonal funds, languished relative to Zürich.
The institutional structure in Zürich in some ways resembles the French system of cumul, in which a single scientist maximized income by occupying simultaneous chairs at multiple institutions in a process that involved significant patronage for positions that were generally reserved for established scientists. 70{ }^{70} Certainly, Wislicenus’ own initial motivation in holding multiple appointments was financial. One significant difference, however, is that in Zürich, the Canton required professors to teach at both the University and the Cantonal School, while in France, professors were required to administer exams to the lycee students, but not required to teach them. In Zürich, Löwig and Wislicenus also received only one salary for their teaching at both the Industrieschule and the University, and there was less to gain financially because there were fewer positions.
- 68{ }^{68} Alan J. Rocke, Nationalizing Science: Adolphe Wurtz and the Battle for French Chemistry (Cambridge, MA, 2000); Jeffrey A. Johnson, ‘Academic Chemistry in Imperial Germany’, Isis, 76 (1985), 500-24; Rocke (note 25).
69{ }^{69} Gustav Zschetzsche to Erziehungsdirektor, March 27, 1869, StAKZ, U118.1.
70{ }^{70} On the French system, see Harry W. Paul, From Knowledge to Power: The Rise of the Science Empire in France, 1860-1939 (New York, 1985); Harry W. Paul, ‘The Issue of Decline in Nineteenth-Century French Science’, French Historical Studies, 7 (1972): 416-50; Robert Fox and George. Weisz, The Organization of Science and Technology in France, 1808-1914 (New York, 1980); Robert Fox, ‘Science, the University, and the State in Nineteenth Century France’, in Professions and the French State, 1700-1900, edited by Gerald Geison (Philadelphia, 1984), 66-146; Terry Shinn, ‘The French Science Faculty System, 1808-1914: Institutional Change and Research Potential in Mathematics and the Physical Sciences’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 10 (1979), 271-332. For more details on the effect of cumul on chemistry in the French system, see Rocke (note 68). ↩︎
As the example of chemistry shows, the system in Zürich seems to be less a conscious emulation of French cumul than cost-saving measures taken by the Canton and the federal state that came at the expense of the time and energy of the faculty-exemplified here by Wislicenus. Physicists in Zürich faced the same material and financial obstacles as the chemists-Albrecht Mousson had a joint appointment between the University and the Polytechnic; and the Cantonal school, University and Polytechnic shared the same physics laboratory for nine years until Mousson and Rudolf Clausius obtained a separate physical institute. 71{ }^{71} In chemistry, the extraordinary professorship held by Schweizer was not replaced until Merz was appointed in 1869. Wislicenus complained about the indecisiveness and vacillation of the educational council about making the necessary offer to prevent his move to Basel, and Cantonal officials had explicitly wondered if Wislicenus was ‘worth the sacrifice’ to keep him in Zürich. 72{ }^{72} Even in 1871, the cantonal council asked the University faculty to justify replacing Wislicenus because the Polytechnic offered a similar array of courses, and the faculty reminded the council that the Polytechnic courses in chemistry were not available to university students. The cantonal council eventually agreed, and Merz and Weith were appointed ordinary and extraordinary professor, but their combined salary was a third less than Wislicenus’ final salary at the university. 73{ }^{73}
Throughout the remainder of the century, the reputation of the Polytechnic continued to climb relative to the university. At the Polytechnic, Wislicenus was succeeded by Victor Meyer, who was in turn succeeded by Arthur Hantzsch, who oversaw the construction of an enormous successor to the Ramistrasse laboratory in 1887. At the university, Merz remained in the Kantonsschule laboratory until 1887, when the university inherited the vacated Ramistrasse laboratory from the Polytechnic. Merz himself was succeeded in 1893 by Alfred Werner, who supervised the construction of a new university chemical laboratory in 1909, the first building dedicated to chemistry since the university’s founding. Werner has rightly been celebrated as one of Zürich’s most famous and productive chemists, but his success came within the extremely cramped and unhealthy conditions of the old Rämistrasse laboratory. 74{ }^{74}
As we have seen, the enrolment of both beginning and advanced chemistry students in Zürich grew significantly during the 1860s, coincident with Wislicenus’ tenure. Explaining this growth is complex. The trends seen in Zürich are reflective of the general growth of chemistry as a discipline and a profession tied to an emerging Swiss chemical industry that cannot be addressed here. In part, the growth can be attributed to the presence of the Polytechnic, which provided students with a route towards pursuing doctoral work at the University without the necessary Abitur; Merz and Baltzer, for example, both followed the route from the Industrieschule to Polytechnic and University. Yet some of the growth can be attributed to Wislicenus’ own personality and ability as a teacher that appealed to students and colleagues alike. Although Städeler was an extremely capable chemist and one of the founders of qualitative analytical chemistry, he appears to have been less effective than Löwig as a laboratory director. This could be
- 71{ }^{71} See chapter 8 in Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach, Intellectual Mastery of Nature: Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein. Vol. 1, the Torch of Mathematics, 1800-1870 (Chicago, 1986).
72{ }^{72} Wislicenus to Eduard Hagenbach, December 17, 1868, StABS, PA 838 G95, Zschetzsche to President Eduard Suter, December, 1868, StAKZ, U118.1.
73{ }^{73} Merz’ salary was 2500 Francs, Weith’s was 1000 Francs. Wislicenus’ final salary at the university was 5500 Francs. Erziehungswesen statements, February 15 and March 29, 1871, StAKZ, U110b.1, Folder 18.
74{ }^{74} Kauffman (note 1), 44. ↩︎
explained by Städeler’s initial dual appointment, the combined laboratories, and his ill health during the 1860s, but also by his personality, which did not lend itself to attracting new students. Städeler was even a source of conflict-he was directly responsible for Merz’ decision move to Wislicenus’ laboratory, and he attempted to derail Weith’s Habilitation. 75{ }^{75}
Städeler was nearly a generation older than Wislicenus, and not an advocate of the new chemistry of the 1860s. As a proponent of structural chemistry, Wislicenus felt somewhat isolated in Zürich until he was joined by Merz, Weith and a growing group of loyal students. In an 1865 letter to Erlenmeyer, Wislicenus wrote that Städeler (and Bolley) ‘simply dismissed the path of modern chemistry with the greatest openness as an abysmal “fraud” (bodenlosen ‘Schwindel’)’ and that Charles Gerhardt, 'who early on was up to no good, actually became a notorious arch swindler (Erzschwindler), just because he wrote the molecular formula for water as H2O′.76\mathrm{H}_{2} \mathrm{O}^{\prime} .{ }^{76} In a letter to Eduard Hagenbach recommending Jules Piccard for the Basel chair he had declined, he urged Hagenbach to contact Bolley and Kappeler, who would affirm his own high opinion of Piccard, but warned him to ‘just avoid Städeler, because he cannot praise any chemist who is younger than he is’. 77{ }^{77}
By contrast, students gravitated to Wislicenus, attracted by his warm personality and his genuine interest in teaching them chemistry and nurturing their professional development. There was also a certain amount of luck in shaping Wislicenus’ career, since his rise in Zürich depended in part on Schweizer’s unfortunate premature death and Städeler’s poor health. Highly personable and politically astute, Wislicenus was able effectively to capitalize on these opportunities, convincing officials to support the material needs of the growing numbers of students and the demands of research in Zürich. By 1872, Wislicenus had managed to untangle the relationship between University and Industrieschule and increase funding for chemistry at the Polytechnic, but twelve years of heavy teaching and administrative loads had taken their toll. When the University of Würzburg called him in 1872, he saw the return to Germany as a ‘release from overburden of official work that has oppressed me’, and he decided to leave the city and the institutions that had launched his career. 78{ }^{78}
Acknowledgements
Some of the research for this article was conducted while on sabbatical leave at the Organic Chemistry Institute of the University of Zürich. I am grateful to Jay Siegel and Kim Baldridge for the invitation and for access to the OCI archives. I am also grateful for many helpful comments from Mary Jo Nye and Ernst Homburg. Research for this article was also supported by the National Science Foundation, Grants #0240312 and #1027652.
- 75{ }^{75} Werner and Meister (note 49), LXIV. Städeler to Dekan, June 9, 1866, StAKZ, U110d.1, Folder 32.
76{ }^{76} Wislicenus to Erlenmeyer, August 6, 1865, Dingler Nachlaß, Aschaffenburg.
77{ }^{77} Wislicenus to Hagenbach, December 31, 1868, StABS, PA 838 G95.
78{ }^{78} Wislicenus to Erlenmeyer, May 2, 1872, Archive, Deutsches Museum, 1968-476/1. Also factoring in Wislicenus’ decision was his desire to return to Germany and a recent increasing hostility towards ethnic Germans in Zürich because of German unification. ↩︎