Johann Zacherl
Encyclopedia
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
inventor, industrialist and manufacturer. Johann Zacherl made a fortune in the late 19th century by selling dried flower heads of Chrysanthenum cinerariifolum as an insecticide
Insecticide
An insecticide is a pesticide used against insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against the eggs and larvae of insects respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and the household. The use of insecticides is believed to be one of the major factors behind...
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Biography
Johann Zacherl was born in MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
(Germany) in 1814 and died in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
(Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
) in 1888. After finishing his studies, he left Munich to visit successively Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, St Petersburg and Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
down to Tiflis in the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
. There, he discovered that local villagers used a natural insecticide, Pyrethrum, against vermin
Vermin
Vermin is a term applied to various animal species regarded by some as pests or nuisances and especially to those associated with the carrying of disease. Since the term is defined in relation to human activities, which species are included will vary from area to area and even person to person...
and began to develop its trade with Austria in 1842. This powder received different names: Lowizachek in Armenia, Bug Flower, Powder of Persia and Persian insect powder.
After a longer stay in Tiflis, he established in Vienna his company in 1855, the Mottenfraß-Versicherungsunternehmung Johann Zacherl, in the 19th district
Döbling
Döbling is the 19th District in the city of Vienna, Austria . It is located on the north end from the central districts, north of the districts Alsergrund and Währing...
and started to sell the famous insect repellent
Insect repellent
An insect repellent is a substance applied to skin, clothing, or other surfaces which discourages insects from landing or climbing on that surface. There are also insect repellent products available based on sound production, particularly ultrasound...
Zacherlin. With the help of his skillful son Johann Evangelist Zacherl, he developed the Pyrethrum
Pyrethrum
Pyrethrum refers to several Old World plants of the genus Chrysanthemum which are cultivated as ornamentals for their showy flower heads. Pyrethrum is also the name of a natural insecticide made from the dried flower heads of C. cinerariifolium and C...
product line around the insecticide powder.
Insecticide Zacherlin
Zacherl developed an all-natural effective mothMoth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...
protection product made from Pyrethrum
Pyrethrum
Pyrethrum refers to several Old World plants of the genus Chrysanthemum which are cultivated as ornamentals for their showy flower heads. Pyrethrum is also the name of a natural insecticide made from the dried flower heads of C. cinerariifolium and C...
blossoms. He agreed with the chiefs of the villages to collect the flowers and to ship them to Tiflis. Zacherl then ground the dried Pyrethrum blossoms down to powder, filled bags with the powder and inserted these for transport to Europe in sheep leathers. He kept importing dried flower heads of Chrysanthenum Cinerariifolum and Chrysanthenum Coccineum directly from Tifflis, Georgia until 1870, when he started its production locally. His insecticidal powder was called Zacherlin. Other products were developed like a carpet-cleaning machine "distributing over the cleansed carpet the insecticide to guard it against the attack of moth" in 1882, a Pyrethrum Soap and a tincture for destroying insects.
According to Hiscox, the insecticide was obtained as follows:
The powder is obtained by brushing the dried flowers of the pellitory (pyrethrum). The leaves, too, are often used. (...) The active principle is not a volatile oil, as stated by some writers, but a rosinRosin.Rosin, also called colophony or Greek pitch , is a solid form of resin obtained from pines and some other plants, mostly conifers, produced by heating fresh liquid resin to vaporize the volatile liquid terpene components. It is semi-transparent and varies in color from yellow to black...
, which can be dissolved out from the dry flowers by means of etherEtherEthers are a class of organic compounds that contain an ether group — an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups — of general formula R–O–R'. A typical example is the solvent and anesthetic diethyl ether, commonly referred to simply as "ether"...
. The leaves also contain this rosin but in. smaller proportions than the flowers. Tincture of pyrethrum is made by infusing the dried flowers in five times their weight of rectified spirit of wine. Diluted with water it is used as a lotion.
(...)
The dust resulting from the use of insect powder sometimes proves irritating to the mucous membranes of the one applying the powder. This is best avoided by the use of a spray atomizer.
From the beginning, Zacherl adopted as successful branding strategy to associate in customers' minds the Zacherlin with a cossak with high cap and an atomizer in the hand.
According to Brigitte Hamann, Dr Karl Lueger
Karl Lueger
Karl Lueger was an Austrian politician and mayor of Vienna. The populist and anti-Semitic politics of his Christian Social Party are sometimes viewed as a model for Hitler's Nazism.- Career :...
, mayor of Vienna and known for his public antisemitic statements, "once joked in a public meeting at Zacherlin squirts (Zacherlinspritzen in German) that one would have to invent against the Jews (Zacherlin was considered a powerful insect extermination mean)".
Forty years later, another insecticide, the Zyklon B
Zyklon B
Zyklon B was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide infamous for its use by Nazi Germany to kill human beings in gas chambers of extermination camps during the Holocaust. The "B" designation indicates one of two types of Zyklon...
, was used against civilians (including many Jews) in the gas chamber
Gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...
s of Auschwitz and Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
during the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
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Architecture
The insecticide factory in DöblingDöbling
Döbling is the 19th District in the city of Vienna, Austria . It is located on the north end from the central districts, north of the districts Alsergrund and Währing...
was designed by the architect Hugo von Wiedenfeld and constructed by Karl Mayreder
Karl Mayreder
Karl Mayreder was an Austrian architect.- Life and work :Karl Mayreder was born the son of hotelier Leopold Mayreder and his wife Henriette Mayreder...
in 1888–1892. Explicitly oriental in style, the polychromed brick building with pointed arches, two minarets and a dome, place this building among the brightest industrial buildings of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
After the collapse of the Zacherl company, the building has been used as carpets, furs and textiles warehouse. Today, the Zacherl factory is used for art exhibitions and symposiums, in close link with the contemporary art exhibitions Position:Gegenwart held in the Jesuit's Church
Jesuitenkirche, Vienna
The Jesuit Church , also known as the University Church is a two-floor, double-tower church in Vienna, Austria, influenced by early Baroque principles but remodeled by Andrea Pozzo in 1703-1705. The Church is located on Dr...
of Vienna.
His son Johann Evangelist Zacherl commissioned Jože Plečnik
Jože Plecnik
Jože Plečnik , was a Slovene architect who practised in Vienna, Belgrade, Prague and Ljubljana.-Biography:...
the office building Zacherlhaus
Zacherlhaus
The Zacherlhaus is a residential and business tower designed by Jože Plečnik and built between 1903 and 1905 in the 1st district of Vienna, the Innere Stadt ....
in Vienna's Innere Stadt
Innere Stadt
The Innere Stadt is the 1st municipal District of Vienna . The Innere Stadt is the old town of Vienna. Until the city boundaries were expanded in 1850, the Innere Stadt was congruent with the city of Vienna...
built in 1903–1905. The building includes a row of atlantes along the cornice line by sculptor Franz Metzner
Franz Metzner
Franz Metzner was an influential German sculptor, particularly his sculptural figures integrated into the architecture of Central European public buildings in the Art Nouveau / Jugendstil / Vienna Secession period...
.