Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, the German chemist who discovered caffeine

Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge was a German badytical chemist born near Hamburg on February 8, 1795 and died in Oranienburg on March 25, 1867.

Today, Google is dedicating

doodle

to this scientist who has carried out experiments since his childhood and has managed to identify the mydriatic effects of the belladonna extract. In 1819, he showed his discovery to Goethe, who offered him to badyze the coffee. A few months later, Runge identified caffeine.

Runge studied chemistry in Jena and Berlin, where he obtained a doctorate. After traveling throughout Europe for three years, he taught chemistry at the University of Breslau until 1831. By 1852 he worked for a chemical company, but he was fired and died in poverty fifteen years later.

His work on chemicals included purine chemistry, the discovery of caffeine, blue dye aniline, coal tar products, paper chromatography, pyrrole, quinoline, phenol, thymol and atropine.