Grimm's hydride displacement law

Grimm's Hydride Displacement Law is an early hypothesis to describe bioisosterism, the ability of certain chemical groups to function as or mimic other chemical groups.^[1][2]

“Atoms anywhere up to four places in the periodic system before an inert gas change their properties by uniting with one to four hydrogen atoms, in such a manner that the resulting combinations behave like pseudoatoms, which are similar to elements in the groups one to four places respectively, to their right.”^[3]

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According to Grimm, each vertical column (of Table 1) would represent a group of isosteres.

References

1. ^  Grimm, H. G. Structure and Size of the Non-metallic Hydrides Z. Electrochem. 1925, 31, 474-480.
2. ^  Grimm, H. G. On the Systematic Arrangement of Chemical Compounds from the Perspective of Research on Atomic Composition; and on Some Challenges in Experimental Chemistry. Naturwissenschaften 1929, 17, 557-564.
3. ^  Patani, G. A.; LaVoie, E. J. Bioisosterism: A Rational Approach in Drug Design. Chem. Rev. 1996, 96, 3147-3176. (doi:10.1021/cr950066q)