FAUSTINO JOVITA MALAGUTI Sugar, substitution theory, and amides

Faustino Jovita Malaguti (1802-1878), an Italian-French pharmacist, proved that diluted, even very diluted acids, at temperatures below 95 .C, acted in an identical manner upon sugar and that the final result was a mixture of ulmic and formic acid or only ulmic acid, depending if the reaction was conducted in the presence or absence of atmospheric air. Malaguti studied the preparation of mucic and paramucic acid and their derivatives, ethyl citrate and the formula of citric acid, crystalline camphoric acid by the prolonged action of nitric acid on camphor, the preparation and properties of several derivatives of camphoric acid, studied the chlorination of a large number of ethers to prove that the assumption of the substitution theory that one atom of hydrogen could be replaced by one atom of chlorine. His results helped establish the substitution theory and dethrone the chemical theory of Berzelius. Malaguti prepared a large number of pure amides and discovered many new ones, among them mucamide,
pyrotartramide, pimelamide, and adipamide. He demonstrated that cystine contained sulfur, carried on the synthesis of pigments for porcelain, the chloroesters and amides of a large number of organic acids, the reciprocal relations between soluble and insoluble salts, the effect of passage of sunlight through different liquids, etc.