William Henry Perkin
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Sir William Henry Perkin was an English chemist and entrepreneur best known for his serendipitous discovery of the first commercial synthetic organic dye, mauveine, made from aniline. Though he failed
Perkin in 1906
Professor Charles Rees wearing a bow tie dyed with an original sample of mauveine while holding a Royal Society of Chemistry journal named after Perkin
The craze for aniline dyes, satirised in this George du Maurier cartoon
Section of Coal Tar Colour Works at Greenford
Quinine
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Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. Whi
William Henry Perkin
…for his serendipitous discovery of the first commercial synthetic organic dye, mauveine, made from aniline. Though he failed in trying to synthesise quinine for the treatment of malaria, he became successful in the field of dyes after his first discovery at the age of 18. Perkin set up a factory to produce…
Tonic water, in normal light and ultraviolet "black light". The quinine content of tonic water causes it to fluoresce under black light.
19th-century illustration of Cinchona calisaya