VOTOČEK, Emil

V. was the son of a Prague paper trader and should succeed his father’s business. Thus he attended Commercial college after having finished grammar school. However, V. was more interested in chemistry, particularly in organic chemistry and thus he enrolled in the Czech Institute of Technology in Prague. After graduation he spent one year in Mulhouse in France, where he learnt about the paint chemistry and another year in Göttingen in Germany, working to find saccharide. In 1895 he began working as an assistant at the Czech Institute of Technology and after achieving habilitation as an assistant professor in 1900. Rayman, his teacher, a student of Friederich August von Kekulés and professor of organic chemistry at the Prague Charles University, habilitated and encouraged him in his work. In 1906 he became an associate and the following year a full professor of experimental inorganic and organic chemistry at the Institute of Technology, where he was elected rector in 1921/22. He remained active at the Institute until its closure in 1939. The area of his interests was broad and covered the organic, inorganic and analytical chemistry. Among a series of discoveries, especially in the field of saccharides, he is responsible for an internationally recognized terminology in the field of methyl pentose. As a member he was involved in terminological commission of Organic Chemistry, operated by the organization called International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) for many years. His work in the field of chemistry saccharide concerned the isolation and characterization of the saccharide. He is responsible for marking the epimers for a certain type of spatial isomerism links as well as for the synthesis of a number of saccharide and their derivatives. As a teacher he issued a number of textbooks of organic and inorganic chemistry. To help expedite the proliferation of international research, he together with Jaroslav → Heyrovský founded the newspaper "Collection of Czechoslovak Chemical Communications". He spoke many languages: French, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Italian, Spanish and German. The extraordinary talent for languages enabled him to have issued a number of chemical dictionaries and Czech-French conversational manual. He also had a gift for music. After studying at the Prague Conservatory he composed chamber music and solo singing. From 1972 onwards the Director of Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague has been awarding V. medal for specific scientific achievements in chemistry. In 1933 V. was nominated for the Nobel Prize for chemistry, but the ceremony did not take place that year.