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Google honors Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge who is known for identifying coffee. Image Source: Google
The doodle, which is seen on Google s homepage today, shows the impact of Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge's research, which was an accidental discovery of the chemical composition of coffee beans and leading to the isolation of caffeine. Runge who was born outside of Hamburg on February 8th, in the year 1795 was interested in chemistry right from an early age and began conducting experiments as a teenager. Today, his 225th birthday is being celebrated. So, if you love to drink coffee then you should be thankful to Runge.
Runge who was a son of a Lutheran pastor splashed a drop of belladonna extract in his eye during one such experiment by mistake and this is how he took note of its pupil-dilating effects. Then, He was asked to reproduce belladonna s effects as part of a demonstration while he was studying under renowned chemist and inventor Johann Wolfang Dobereiner Goethe at the University of Jena ten years later.
Runge was handed a bag of rare coffee beans and was asked to analyze their chemical makeup by Goethe. Furthermore, it led to the isolation of the active ingredient of coffee beans, which is popularly known as caffeine now. Thus, the isolation of caffeine took place for the first time in the year1819. After the isolation process, Runge earned his doctorate from the University of Berlin and then taught at the University of Breslau until the year 1831. At this point, he left academia to work at a chemical company.
Runge also found the first coal tar dye and a related process used for dyeing clothes, while at his new job. The other contributions of Runge are the isolation of quinine (the drug used to treat malaria), the originator of paper chromatography and inventing a method for extracting sugar from beet juice. Runge died on March 25, 1867, at the age of 73.