Louis Rosenfeld

Justus Liebig and Animal Chemistry

Justus Liebig was one of the individuals making chemistry almost a German monopoly in the 19th century. At Giessen he established the first organic chemistry laboratory and offered a systematic course for training new chemists. His comprehensive survey of plant nutrition changed the nature of scientific agriculture. In a study of animal chemistry, Liebig treated physiologic processes as chemical reactions and inferred the transformations from the chemical properties of the elements and compounds in laboratory reactions. He constructed hypothetical chemical equations derived from the formulae of the participating compounds. Liebig generalized that all organic nitrogenous constituents of the body are derived from plant protein and demonstrated how the application of quantitative methods of organic chemistry can be applied to the investigation of the animal organism. Liebigs theories were attractive, but his method of converting one substance to another by moving atoms around on paper was speculative because of the lack of knowledge as to how the elements were arranged. His dynamic personality helped win widespread acceptance by many, but others were antagonized by his wishful thinking and speculative excesses. Liebigs views on catalysis and fermentation brought him into a controversy with Louis Pasteur. Liebigs Animal Chemistry stimulated an interest in clinical chemistry because it introduced a quantitative method into physiological chemistry. However, the isolated pieces of test results on blood and urine were unconnected and did not fit anywhere. Physicians found that chemistry was not helpful at the bedside and they lost interest in its application.

William Prout: Early 19th Century Physician-Chemist

In the early 19th century, the discoveries of new substances in the healthy and diseased body spawned a search for chemical explanations for physiologic phenomena to guide medical diagnosis and control therapy. William Prouts work on the nature and treatment of diseases of the urinary organs established his reputation as one of Britains most distinguished physiological chemists. Prout was very skeptical of chemical remedies because of possible side effects, but he suggested iodine treatment for goiter. He emphasized that a satisfactory diet should include carbohydrates, fats, protein, and water. In 1824, he showed that the acid of the gastric juice was hydrochloric acid. Prout applied chemical methods and reasoning to physiology and was criticized for his view that the bodys vital functions could be explained by chemistry. His remedy for lack of progress in animal chemistry was for physiologists to become chemists. Prout stimulated much discussion on atomic theory by his hypothesis that the atomic weights of all chemical elements are whole-number multiples of the atomic weight of hydrogen and that the chemical elements were condensed from hydrogen atoms.