Anton Köllisch

Anton Köllisch (16 March 1888 – September 1916) was a German chemist who, whilst working at Darmstadt for pharmaceutical giant Merck, first described the synthesis of the chemical MDMA which would later come to be known as "ecstasy".

Life and work
In 1911, Köllisch published his doctoral dissertation on the topic of indole synthesis from hydrazones under Otto Diels at the University of Berlin.

While at Merck, Dr Köllisch was involved in investigating syntheses for methylhydrastinine and hydrastinine. A procedural patent was filed on Christmas Eve 1912 relating to these syntheses, which mentioned MDMA without name as a chemical intermediate.

He was killed in the First World War.