Shishkov, Leon

Shishkov, Leon Nikolaevich 

Born Feb. 23 (Mar. 7), 1830, in the village of Speshnevo, in what is now Lipetsk Oblast; died there Dec. 31,1908 (Jan. 13,1909). Russian chemist.

Shishkov graduated in 1851 from the Mikhail Artillery School in St. Petersburg, where he later taught. In 1860 he became a professor at the Mikhail Artillery Academy, where in 1861 he established a chemistry laboratory considered exemplary for its time. He retired from teaching in 1865 and moved to the country, where he continued his research. Shishkov’s main works were devoted to the chemistry of explosives. Shishkov studied the physi-cochemistry involved in the combustion of gunpowder. He also studied the composition and structure of fulminic acid and its salts (fulminates). He was the first to synthesize and describe a number of nitro compounds, such as tetranitromethane and trini-tromethane (or nitroform).

REFERENCE

Figurovskii, N. A., and Iu. S. Musabekov. “Vydaiushchiisia russkii khimik L. N. Shishkov.” Trudy Instituta istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki, 1954, vol. 2.