Since a rather young age, Alexander Borodin was intelligent, with an innate gift for music. Young Borodin grew up becoming fluent in German, French and English, besides his native Russian. He later learned Italian and was able to write a technical essay in that language.
Borodin studied medicine at the Medico-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg from 1850 to 1855 and defended his doctoral thesis on the similarity between arsenic and phosphoric acid in 1858.
During the first 2 years at the Academy, Borodin developed a deep interest in chemistry while attending the brilliant lectures given by Professor Nikolai N. Zinin.
Between 1859 and 1862 Borodin held a post-doctorate in Heidelberg. He worked on benzene derivatives in the laboratory of Emil Erlenmeyer. He also spent time in Pisa, working on organic halogens. One experiment published in 1862 described the first nucleophilic displacement of chlorine by fluorine in benzoyl chloride.
In 1864 he was appointed professor of chemistry at the Medico-Surgical Academy. In 1861, Borodin attended the first international congress of chemistry in Karlsruhe, and he was among the founders of the Russian Chemical Society in 1868.
He published 42 articles and was a friend of Dmitri Mendeleev, the scientist who described the periodic system. He is co-credited with discovering the Aldol Reaction which is, apparently, a way of forming carbon-to-carbon bonds.
Borodin played an active role in the administration of the Medico-Surgical Academy and, together
with Botkin. Sechenov, and other professors of the Academy, in 1872, Borodin started the first medical courses for women in Russia.
Borodin is also best known for his symphonies, his opera Prince Igor, and for later providing the musical inspiration for the musical Kismet. Borodin started the work on his first symphony in 1862, under the tutelage of Mily Balakirev and completed the work by 1869, when it was premiered under the baton of Mily Balakirev.
Alexander Borodin – Russian doctor and chemist
