VI. Contributions to the history of methylic aldehyde

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 1868
• Subjects: Carbonic acid
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspl.1867.0029; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspl.1867.0029

The aldehyde of the methyl-series is not known;” all the chemical manuals say so, and for the last twenty years my students have been duly informed thereof. It will scarcely appear strange that more efforts to be­come acquainted with that body should not have been made, since the masterly picture which Liebig has delineated of the aldehyde par excellence embraced as it were the history of the whole class, and of course also of the aldehyde in question. Nevertheless methylic aldehyde deserves our consideration for more than one reason. As one of the simplest terms of the monocarbon-series, occupying a position intermediate between marsh-gas and carbonic acid, as a link of transition connecting methylic alcohol and formic acid, as either aldehyde or acetone, according to the point of view from which we look upon it, the compound CH 2 O illustrates a greater variety of relations than any one of the higher aldehydes. But in addition to the interest with which the methyl-compound has thus always been invested, this substance possesses special claims upon our attention at the present moment. Our actual method of treating organic chemistry for the purposes of instruction almost involves the necessity of starting from the methyl-series. The simplest of aldehydes thus acquires quite an espe­cial importance, and all those who, like the author of this note, are engaged in teaching, cannot fail to have sadly missed a compound which is the car­rier of such varied and interesting considerations. The desire which I have frequently felt in my lectures of developing the idea of the genus aldehyde, when speaking of the methyl-compounds, has more than once induced me to attempt the preparation of methyl-aldehyde, but it was only at the conclusion of my last summer course that I succeeded, to a certain extent at all events, in attaining the object of my wishes.