Laboratory Methods of Organic Chemistry - Sciencemadness Dot Org

HINTS FOE USING THE LITEKATUKB OF
ORGANIC CHBMISTKY
THE multitudinous compounds of carbon, over 200,000 in number,
are so well arranged in chemical reference books that it is a simple
matter to obtain particulars about any one of them. Students
should know their way about the library quite early in their course,
at the latest when they begin to prepare substances described in
original papers. In order to supply this knowledge some directions
are given here.
The foundation-stone of the systematic arrangement of organic
compounds is the'principle of the " formula index " which was first
worked out by M. M. Kichter in his Formel-Lexikon der organischen
Verbindungen, of which the third edition includes the material
available up to the year 1910. The compounds are grouped, according
to the number of carbon atoms in the molecule, in a numerical
series from Cj upwards. In the separate groups those substances
come first which contain only one element in addition to carbon, and
they are so arranged that the additional elements follow each other
in the order H, O, N, Halogen, S, P, As ; then come the compounds
with two, three, and more elements besides carbon, arranged as
before. For example, if information is wanted about methyl pchlorobenzoate
a search is made in Richter's Lexikon in the volume
which contains the compounds of the C8 series, since the substance
has the molecular formula C8H7O2C1. The headings in the upper
corners of the pages lead to the group 8 III, i.e. to the list of organic
compounds which contain three other elements besides eight carbon
atoms.
Since the known compounds in the group C8III are arranged
according to the number of atoms of the additional elements (H and
0), it is easy to find the compound required.
The Lexicon of the carbon compounds corresponds to the great
reference work of Beilstein, which will be discussed later. Accordingly,
for our compound the Lexicon gives, in addition to a brief
419 2 E 2