Dirty deeds at Dorpat

Johann Georg Noel Dragendorff was a German-born pharmacist who made a name for himself at a young age with the Pharmaceutical Society of St. Petersburg. Among his most celebrated contributions to science was the development of the reagent named after him, which consisted of a mixture of bismuth and potassium iodides in dilute sulfuric acid. Dragendorff's activities in St. Petersburg led to the offer of the Chair in Pharmacy and Directorship of the Pharmaceutical Institute of the University of Dorpat (now Tartu in Estonia). This was a university with strong Western influence in the sciences, and the majority of its students in the 19th century were Baltic Germans. Dragendorff's sudden departure from Dorpat leads the author to question whether his supposed resignation was rather a dismissal brought on by Alexander II's promotion of Russian culture.