32 Facts About Ira Remsen

Ira Remsen was an American chemist who introduced organic chemistry research and education in the United States along the lines of German universities where he received his early training.

Ira Remsen was the first professor of chemistry and the second president of Johns Hopkins University.

Ira Remsen founded the American Chemical Journal, which he edited from 1879 to 1914.

The discovery of saccharin was made in his laboratory by Constantine Fahlberg who worked in collaboration with Remsen but patented the synthesis on his own, earning the ire of Remsen.

Ira Remsen was born in New York City on February 10,1846.

Ira Remsen was the son of James Vanderbelt Remsen and Rosanna nee Secor who came from family of Dutch settlers.

Ira Remsen went to the New York Free Academy where he studied Greek, Latin, maths and sciences.

Ira Remsen attended popular lectures by Robert Ogden Doremus at the Cooper Institute.

Ira Remsen did not complete his bachelor's degree but apprenticed for a while under a homeopathic physician who was on the faculty of New York Homeooathic Medical School.

Ira Remsen dropped out of this as well and joined the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University receiving an MD in 1867 with a thesis on fatty degeneration of the liver.

Ira Remsen then practiced at Irving Place, New York and a year later sought to study chemistry in Germany.

Ira Remsen went to the University of Munich where he worked under Jacob Volhard as well as one series of lectures under Justus von Liebig who was the main attraction for Remsen to move to Germany.

Ira Remsen then went to the University of Gottingen, on the recommendation of Friedrich Wohler, and studied organic chemistry under Rudolph Fittig.

Ira Remsen worked as an assistant to Fittig from 1870 to 1872 and during this time he met William Ramsay.

Ira Remsen married Elisabeth Hilleard Mallory on April 3,1875, in New York City, New York.

In 1872, after researching pure chemistry at University of Tubingen, Ira Remsen returned to the United States and became a professor at Williams College, where he wrote the popular text Theoretical Chemistry.

Ira Remsen accepted and founded the department of chemistry there, overseeing his own laboratory.

In 1879, Ira Remsen founded the American Chemical Journal, which he edited for 35 years.

Ira Remsen was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1879.

Ira Remsen named the substance saccharin and he and his research partner Remsen published their finding in 1880.

Later Ira Remsen became angry after Fahlberg, in patenting saccharin, claimed that he alone had discovered saccharin.

Ira Remsen had no interest in the commercial success of saccharin, from which Fahlberg profited, but he was incensed at the perceived dishonesty of not crediting him as the head of the laboratory.

Fahlberg would soon grow wealthy, while Ira Remsen merely grew irritated, believing he deserved credit for substances produced in his laboratory.

Ira Remsen's testimony was included in the case but the documents are lost.

Ira Remsen founded the American Chemical Journal that he edited out of Baltimore and competed with the Journal of the American Chemical Society run by the American Chemical Society.

Ira Remsen had joined the ACS in 1878 but he let his membership expire.

In 1901 Ira Remsen was appointed the president of Johns Hopkins, where he proceeded to found a School of Engineering and helped establish the school as a research university.

Ira Remsen introduced many of the German laboratory techniques he had learned and wrote several important chemistry textbooks.

Ira Remsen served on the Baltimore School Commission in efforts to improve the infrastructure of secondary education.

Ira Remsen died on March 4,1927, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

Ira Remsen's ashes are interred behind a plaque in the chemistry building on the Homewood campus at Johns Hopkins University.

Ira Remsen's ashes are located behind a plaque in Remsen Hall; he is the only person buried on campus.