Features of Mechanistic Organic Chemistry already Present in 1910

Abstract

The sub-discipline of physical organic chemistry, a hybrid of organic and physical chemistry, made the study of the mechanisms of chemical reactions its task, using kinetics as the main tool. Perusal of the monograph by N. V. Sidgwick, Organic Chemistry of Nitrogen, which fulfils an explicit research programme in physical organic chemistry, serves here as an index to the status of this sub-discipline at the turn of the twentieth century. Many among the major concepts not only were fully formed, they were operative too. Sidgwick's book is at the root of the organized study of organic reaction mechanisms. This paternity begs to be more generally recognized. That this is not yet the case is due to Sidgwick's name having been associated almost exclusively to his later work, when he helped to usher in quantum chemical ideas. It is thus concluded that the mechanistic paradigm was already in place by 1910.