History

The chemist, inventor and entrepreneur Dr. Otto Hoffmann
Dr. Otto Hoffmann was born in the year 1854 as Carl Franz Otto Hoffmann in Eisdorf, a small town at the foot of the Harz region. His father was the mayor of the village and earned his money as farmer and horse groom. Otto remained the only child from the second wife. When he was 10 years old his family moved to Halle, where, after his father died, Otto went to the Francke Foundation boarding school. Despite fi nancial problems, he studied in Berlin and Leipzig and received his PhD in Würzburg in 1878 on „the infl uence of zinc and iodine allyl on acet ethyl acetate and diethyl acetethyl acetate“.

Before getting to know the dentist Dr. Robert Richter who had been educated in the USA, he, amongst other things, developed dyestuffs for today’s BASF and had a number of procedures for the synthesis of water soluble indulines patented.

Richter in turn, was on the look out for a resourceful chemist who would be able to develop a dental cement similar to that designed by Rostaing de Rostagni,

the composition of which he had however taken to his grave.

Otto Hoffmann started looking for a solution to the problem and actually did fi nd a formula which not only replicated Rostaing’s dentinogenes but even surpassed them considerably in terms of quality.He thereupon finally settled in Berlin and together with a companion founded a Company in order to produce and market the zinc phosphate cement which he had developed.

The product quickly found many takers across the world, so that the company had achieved a monopolistic position by the outbreak of the First World War. Dr. Hoffmann also developed a number of other products for dentistry, but phosphate cement was to be his most lasting invention.

The work of this dental industry pioneer lives on today, not least in the products that carry his name: Hoffmann´s.