ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores an historical answer to a larger philosophical problem surrounding the meaning of chemical formulas. It lays out the intellectual, practical and institutional background of organic chemistry in the nineteenth century, particularly the development of the concept of chemical structure during the 1860s. The book also lays out the immediate context surrounding the proposal of the tetrahedral hypothesis by J. H. Van 't Hoff and J. A. Le Bel. It looks at the reception of the tetrahedral carbon atom in the crucial early period between 1874 and 1887. The book discusses the chemistry of Johannes Wislicenus, long credited as the inventor of the concept of 'geometrical isomerism', whose research on lactic acid directly inspired Van 't Hoff's theory, and who enthusiastically sponsored the translation of La chimie dans l'espace into German.
