Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, who is celebrated in today鈥檚 Google doodle, was the discoverer of caffeine and the first person to isolate quinine, but his contribution to chemistry is often overlooked.
He also invented paper chromatography, a method for separating chemicals which is widely used in teaching labs.
Runge was born in Germany in 1794, the son of a pastor and the third of seven children. While working as an apprentice in his uncle鈥檚 pharmacy, he got a drop of henbane juice in his eye, and noticed that his pupil dilated. Based on experiments on a cat鈥檚 eye, he went on to write a dissertation on the toxic effects of atropine, a chemical found in plants like henbane and deadly nightshade. Atropine blocks receptors for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine which is released by the nervous system to activate muscles.
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Runge studied chemistry at the University of Jena, Germany, under聽J. W. D枚bereiner, an adviser to the writer聽Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His fellow students called him 鈥淒r Gift鈥� 鈥� the German word for poison. D枚bereiner arranged for Runge to perform a demonstration of atropine鈥檚 ability to make cats鈥� pupils dilate for Goethe. Goethe was suitably impressed, and at the end of their meeting he presented Runge with a packet of coffee beans, suggesting that their chemical components might be worth investigating. Runge studied the beans, and later that year, he discovered caffeine.
Read more: Timeline: Drugs and Alcohol
In 1819, while still a student, Runge made another remarkable discovery for which he is seldom credited, isolating quinine from cinchona bark. The discovery of quinine, the first effective antimalarial compound, is usually attributed to Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaim茅 Caventou, who reported their work a year later.
At the time, students in Germany had to do their oral doctoral examination in Latin, but Runge only went to elementary school and had not learned any other languages. He got through the exam by blurting out stock phrases such as 鈥減ractica est multiplex鈥� (practice is varied); 鈥減ost nubila phoebus鈥� (after the clouds, the sun); and 鈥渆rrare est humanum鈥� (to err is human).
In his later years, Runge, a lifelong bachelor, directed his chemical knowledge towards household problems, such as removing stains, making wines from fruits, canning meats and vegetables, and showing off his culinary skill at dinner parties.
