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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    progress, o^ disCQ'yeiy-in this field mu held; Responsible for what might'be regarded'as'many anachronisms of treatment in the text of the work. ;' • , It was my ambition at the outset to have kept pace with the extension of our knowledge up to the completion of the whole work, but the ever-increasing demands upon my time and energies have compelled me to abandon this project and to consider the literature as closed at the end of 1903. An Appendix comprises the more important syntheses which' have been effected during the printing of this volume. In order to avoid unnecessary delay it has also been decided to issue the work in two volumes. The second of these is in rough draft, and will be completed for publication as soon as practicable. If asked, as I frequently have been during the progress of the work, what position synthetical chemistry occupies with respect to the doctrines of Vitalism or Neovitalism, I think it advisable to place upon record the opinion that the present achievements in the domain of chemical synthesis furnish no warrant for the belief that the chemical processes of the living organism are in any sense transcen- dental, or that they must be regarded as belonging to a class of special material transformations which human science will never be able to reproduce. Such an admission as the latter would be tantamount to a proclamation of Neovitalism ; but the whole history of organic synthesis, from the time when it was declared that organic com- pounds could be obtained only by living agency, is opposed to any such conclusion But although the doctrine of a special ‘ vital force ’ has received its deathblow at the hands of modern science, and although there is no warrant for the belief that the physics or chemistry of animals and plants is ultra-scientific, yet it must not be lost sight of that the synthetical possibilities of the living organism have brought us face to face with modes of chemical action of which we are as yet profoundly ignorant. Those who consider that the triumphs of chemical synthesis have finally disposed of Vitalism in any form will do well to bear in mind that, until the chemist has sho'wn that his synthetical methods are identical with Nature’s methods, there is just as much scope for endeavouring to penetrate the chemical vital mysteries as there was in the days when it was believed that every ‘ organic ’ compound ‘ Soo on the other h«nd Dr, Lionel S. Beale’s Introductory Lecture on ‘The Founda- tions of Medical Science,’ delivered at King’s College on Oct. 4, 1895. ‘The Lancet,’ Oct. 19, 1895.
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