Reformatskii, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Born Nov. 25 (Dec. 7), 1864, in Borisoglebskoe, in what is now Ivanovo Oblast; died Dec. 27, 1937, in Moscow. Soviet chemist. Brother of S. N. Reformatskii.

Reformatskii graduated in 1888 from the University of Kazan, where he was a student of A. M. Zaitsev. In 1889 he began lecturing at Moscow University on organic and inorganic chemistry and the history of chemistry. In 1894 he worked with V. Meyer in Heidelberg. Reformatskii was affiliated as a professor with the Moscow Cooperative Courses (1898), the Moscow Advanced Courses for Women (1900), and the Second Moscow State University (1918). In 1930 he became a professor at the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology. From 1906 to 1916 he served as director of the Moscow Academy of Scientific Training, and from 1901 to 1919 he was a professor of chemistry at the A. L. Shaniavskii People’s University.

Reformatskii collaborated with V. V. Markovnikov in studying the composition of rose oil (1894) and carried out independent research on aromatic aldehydes (1901). He investigated the effect of allyl iodide and zinc on the ethyl ester of α-bromopropionic acid and synthesized unsaturated monohy-droxy alcohols of the fatty series C_nH_2n-5OH (1908). Reformatskii is the author of Inorganic Chemistry, which has been published in 26 editions since 1903, and Organic Chemistry, which has been published in seven editions since 1904.