The Tetrahedral Carbon Atom

Abstract

YOUR reviewer, in his notice of my “Elementary Lessons in Organic Chemistry,” takes exception to the statement that the carbon atom has been hypothetically regarded as tetrahedral in shape; he is presumably unacquainted with the criticisms of Lossen (Berichte 20, p. 3306) on Wislicenus's memoir, with Wislicenus's reply¹ (Berichte 21, p. 581), as well as with the pamphlet of Wunderlich (“Configuration organischer Moleküle,” Würzburg, 1886); he need not, however, search “the whole range of stereo-chemical literature” for references of this kind, as there is in the “Handbuch” of V. Meyer and Jacobson, pp. 433–436, a tolerably full discussion as to the ultimate cause of stereo-isomerism in carbon compounds, where it is stated (p. 434) that “the carbon atom may be regarded as a mass of finite extension in space, of any shape, with four points on its surface corresponding to the corners of a regular tetrahedron as the units of affinity.”