VON BAEYER AND BARBITURIC ACID

Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer (1835–1917) was born in Germany. He discovered barbituric acid—the first of a group of sedatives known as barbiturates—in 1864 and named it after a woman named Barbara. Who Barbara was is not certain. Some say she was his girlfriend, but because Baeyer discovered barbituric acid in the same year that Prussia defeated Denmark, some believe he named the acid after Saint Barbara, the patron saint of artillerymen. Baeyer was the first to synthesize indigo,the dye used in the manufacture of blue jeans. He was a professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg and later at the University of Munich. He received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1905 for his work in synthetic organic chemistry.