Page 26 - 《中国药房》网络版（科普刊）2024年6期

22 Xia Ye：Searching for the Trojan Horse Humanistic Pharmacy： From Dream to Reality in 25 Years 2024 年 12 月 第 6 期

at Southern Illinois University， conducted a comprehensive study of all available materials related to
Kekulé. He uncovered a substantial amount of indirect evidence suggesting that Kekulé’s dream

story might have been a carefully crafted tale. The most significant finding was that the French

chemist Auguste Laurent had already drawn the molecular structure of benzene as a hexagonal ring in

his book Chemical Method. Moreover， Wotiz found that in a letter dated July 4， 1854， Kekulé

mentioned his intention to translate Laurent's book from French into German. Based on this， Wotiz
inferred that Kekulé likely already knew about the ring structure of benzene much earlier. Wotiz also

discovered that the Austrian chemist Johann Josef Loschmidt had depicted benzene's ring structure

in his 1861 publication Chemical Studies. In a letter to one of his students dated January 4， 1862，

Kekulé himself mentioned being perplexed by Loschmidt’s proposed structure of benzene.

Gambogenic Acid Molecular Structure Diagram
Wotiz， committed to scientific investigation， organized a symposium in 1940 under the

auspices of the American Chemical Society to discuss the history of the discovery of the benzene ring.

By then， it seemed the true story of the benzene ring had come to light. However， things were not

that simple. The public and popular science writers remained more intrigued by Kekulé’s dream，
preferring to believe it was true. Psychologists， historians of science， and philosophers of science
continue to explore the dream's meaning from more advanced perspectives. In 1995， The American

Journal of Psychology published a 20-page research paper titled Creative Cognitive Processes in

Kekulé's Discovery of the Structure of the Benzene Molecule ［1］. And Kekulé’s dream isn’t the only

instance of scientific breakthroughs being linked to dreams—Mendeleev’s discovery of the periodic
table is also said to have stemmed from a dream. In his 2008 article The Mystery of Kekulé’s Dream

Discovery published in China Youth Daily， Fang Zhouzi concluded with the line： “An interesting