The chemical synthesis of vital products and the interrelations between organic compounds : Vol. 1 / by Raphael Meldola.

  • Meldola Raphael, 1849-1915.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The chemical synthesis of vital products and the interrelations between organic compounds : Vol. 1 / by Raphael Meldola. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    that can be said is that the chemist has realised that which vital chemistry had been realising long before his entry into the field—that such and such atomic groupings are stable and capable of free and definite existence, and to this knowledge he has added the fact that vast numbers of other atomic groupings are also capable of free and definite existence. An impartial survey of the facts will, however, serve to show how far we still are from realising vital chemical pro- cesses in the laboratory. The fact that alcohol can be synthesised from carbon and hydrogen through acetylene, &c., has no direct bearing on the formation of alcohol from sugar by the zymase of the yeast-plant. When we can transform sugar into alcohol in the laboratory at ordinary temperatures by the action of a synthesised nitrogenous organic compound; when we can convert glucose into citric acid in the same way that Citromyces can effect this transforma- tion ; when we can build up heptane, or cymene, or styrene, or when we can produce the naphthalene or anthracene complex in the labora- tory by the interaction of organic compounds at ordinary temperatures, then may the chemist proclaim with confidence that there is no longer any mystery in vital chemistry. It is clear that if chemistry be regarded from what may be called the biocentric point of view, the complete synthesis of an organic compound by pyrogenic methods or by the action of violent reagents is of comparatively little importance. On the other hand, the trans- formation of one vital product into another by laboratory processes— even if these are at present not actually analogous to the physiological processes—may furnish information of the highest biochemical signifi- cance. The treatment of organic chemistry in this work has accord- ingly been entirely subordinated to the biocentric view of the subject. The book is not to be regarded simply as a catalogue of synthetical products and processes; neither does it profess to be a practical laboratoiy guide to the preparation of organic compounds, although, by virtue of its contents, it necessarily comprises both kinds of information. Physiologists will find herein a record of the achieve- ments of synthetical chemistry, chemists will be enabled to ascertain the natural mode of occurrence of organic compounds, and technologists will no doubt find it useful to have the chemical generators of such products as are of industrial value brought conspicuously under notice. The importance of emphasising the relationships between the vital products themselves will be realised when it is pointed out that the future development of our knowledge of the chemistry of the living organism must depend largely upon the detection of the chemical antecedents of these products. The discussion of the results of chemical synthesis from this point of view does not come within the scope of the present work, but belongs—at any rate in the present state of knowledge—rather to the province of physiology. It is for this reason that the necessity for the chemist and physiologist working