William J. Wiswesser, 75, internationally known for his Wiswesser Line-Notation System for chemical structures, died December 17 in Wyomissing, Pa. He was working as a chemist with the Department of Agriculture in the weed science research laboratory in Frederick, Md., until becoming ill.
Wiswesser developed a chemical shorthand based on valence line diagrams after becoming interested in simplifying chemical structure descriptions at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. He earned his B.S. in 1936 and his doctorate in 1974 at Lehigh. Wiswesser wrote or was the coauthor of more than 50 papers and was editor of the Chemical World Index Key and the Pesticide Index.
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