Truly Australian: the HERON reaction

Abstract

The organic chemistry literature describes a multitude of reactions. Many of these have assumed special importance in the discipline and have been identified by the name of their discoverer, by acronyms that describe the process or simply by the chemical process itself. The Merck Index, the reference work produced by Merck Chemical Company since 1889 and now in its 14th edition, is used by medicinal chemists, technologists, pharmacologists and research chemists around the world. In the 12th edition (published in 1996), the editors saw fit to compile these so-called 'named' reactions into an Organic Name Reactions database, which now covers 450 processes characterised by their usefulness or their novelty. For easy reference, each entry is composed of the name(s) associated with the reaction, the original or primary contributors connected with the discovery or development of the reaction, a concise description of the process, a reaction scheme and key references.