Othmar Zeidler

Othmar Zeidler (29 August 1850 – 17 June 1911) (Though many sources mention 1859 as Zeidler's year of birth, this would make him a mere 14 years old at the time of his dissertation in 1873.) The 1859 birth year was used by Joseph S. Fruton, as well as by Gerhard Oberkofler. The latter even has him quit his pharmacy studies at the Vienna University in 1872 (at the apparent age of 12/13) to move to Strassburg. However, Ryslavy As a doctoral student with Adolf von Baeyer at the University of Strasbourg, then in Germany, Zeidler is credited with the first synthesis of the insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT in 1874. Othmar returned to Austria before 1876 and, after working at the I. chemischen Universitätslaboratorium at the University of Vienna, He died in Mauer near Vienna on 17 June 1911.