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Chimica nella Scuola

Pagine di storia

Vol. 4 No. 4 (2025): Chimica nella Scuola n. 4 2025

Bartolomeo Gosio, dalla candidatura al Nobel all’oblio

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1473/cns.v4i4.267
Submitted
18 November 2025
Published
18-11-2025

Abstract

Bartolomeo Gosio (1866-1944) discovered the organication of metals in 1891 and purified the first antibiotic (micofenolic acid) two years later, next abandoning research at the turning of the century and dedicating the rest of his professional life to issues of public health. In the light of his seminal discoveries, which led to his nomination for the Nobel Prize in 1922, the oblivion of Gosio is surprising, and related to a series of unfortunate circumstances including the association of the gas named after him (Gosio’s gas) to pseudo-scientific claims in the realm of history and medicine. Rather than for his discoveries, Gosio was long remembered for allegedly carrying out the first studies on penicillin, but his contribution to this field is limited to the invention of the name “penicillin”, which, however, he used in the context of studies on organoarsenical compounds and not of antibiotics. The research on Gosio’s gas provides an interesting starting point for discussing the complexity of environmental issues and their reductive association to a single chemical compound or class of chemical compounds.

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