Otto Wallach Quotes

Otto Wallach — German Scientist born on March 27, 1847, died on February 26, 1931

Otto Wallach was a German chemist and recipient of the 1910 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on alicyclic compounds... (wikipedia)

As soon as science has solved one problem, new ones arise. This is the essence of science, and it applies, of course, also to the field of essential oils.

In organic chemistry, we have learnt to derive from compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen, i.e. from the hydrocarbons, all other types of combinations, such as alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, acids, etc.

From a very early age onwards, people's attention had been attracted to the volatile substances, characterized by strong smells or flavours, which are among the large variety of substances which form within plants; these were used partly for therapeutic purposes, but in particular for increasing pleasurable sensations by nerve stimulation.

One would think that plants belonging to the same genus would always produce identical or at least similar oils. But this is by no means so.

It has been possible to trace historically back to a very early age the taxes which were imposed on medicines, spices and similar substances in German towns. Thus, for instance, one finds that in the year 1500, thirteen, in 1540, thirty-eight, and in 1708, already one hundred and twenty vegetable oils are mentioned.

Otto Wallach Quotes

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