Recherches sur le dimorphisme WITH Mémoire sur la relation qui peut exister entre la forme cristalline et la composition chimique, et sur la cause de la polarisation rotatoire WITH Recherches sur divers modes de groupement dans le sulfate de potasse AND De l'image photographique colorée du spectre solaire (Becquerel) in Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de L'Academie des Sciences, Tome 26, 1848, pp. 353-355; pp. 535-537; pp. 304-305; pp. 181-183

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1848. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF PASTEUR'S REVOLUTIONARY ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DISCOVERY OF MOLECULAR ASSYMETRY. "Pasteur's discovery counts among the most important advances in chemistry and constitutes the foundation of stereochemistry" ("Pasteur's Award-Winning Publication", BHS, 2013).

PASTEUR: As said, this is Pasteur's announcement of his discovery, but because he wrote two more detailed papers later, there has always been an academic argument as to which paper is of the greatest import and should serve as the official citation [note that we also the more detailed version of the same title and published in the same year, but appearing in Annales de Chimie et de Physique (and which we offer separately). In 2013, the American Chemical Society wanted to award the Citation for Chemical Breakthrough award, an award given to a particularly seminal work. After performing a full assessment of each paper, this reported in the Bulletin of the History of Chemistry in 2013, it was decided that the focused Comptes paper was the most important because it was the initial announcement of an entirely new and revolutionary observation with crucial implications for molecular structure.


"[Pasteur was] puzzled by the discovery of the German chemist Eilhardt Mitscherlich, who had shown that tartrates and paratartrates behaved differently toward polarized light: tartrates rotated the plane of polarized light, whereas paratartrates did not. This was unusual because the compounds displayed identical chemical properties.

"Pasteur noted that the tartrate crystals exhibited asymmetric forms that corresponded to their optical asymmetry. He made the surprising observation that crystalline paratartrate consisted of a mixture of crystals in a right-handed configuration. However, when these crystals were separated manually, he found that they exhibited right and left asymmetry. In other words, a balanced mixture of both right and left crystals was optically inactive. Thus, Pasteur discovered the existence of molecular asymmetry, the foundation of stereochemistry, as it was revealed by optical activity.


"Over the course of the next 10 years, Pasteur further investigated the ability of organic substances to rotate the plane of polarized light. He also studied the relationship that existed between crystal structure and molecular configuration. His studies convinced him that asymmetry was one of the fundamental characteristics of living matter" (Pasteur Biography, Science Control). BECQUEREL: 1st EDITION of Becquerel's 1st report of the 1st photographs of solar spectra. Becquerel took the photos in 1842 and they were first reported here in this volume. Included is Becquerel's methodology in preparing silver plates so as to obtain an image of the solar spectrum. He had creatively allowed a ray to impinge on a plate of silver covered in subchloride of silver. The image was not fixed, and could only be viewed in darkness.

Becquerel impressed "on a silver plate an image of the solar spectrum, or in other words, the oblong colored band of the seven prismatic colors, produced by decomposing a ray of light. This brilliant image (a miniature, and so to speak, artificial rainbow) Becquerel imprinted in a durable manner on a silver plate previously exposed to the action of the chloride. This fact sufficiently proves that the photogenic reproduction of colours is at least within the bounds of possibility" (Eliz Cook's Journal, 3-4, 95). CONDITION & DETAILS: Complete volume. Ex-libris bearing only a deaccessioned stamp on the back of the title page and slight ghosting at the spine where a spine level has been removed. 4to (11 x 8 inches; 275 x 200mm). [6], 728, [2]. Bound in clean full blue cloth, gilt-lettered at the spine. Solidly and tightly bound. Small stain at the head of the last twenty pages, very occasional toning, otherwise clean and bright throughout.