Quantitative laws in biological chemistry / by Svante Arrhenius.

  • Svante August Arrhenius
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Quantitative laws in biological chemistry / by Svante Arrhenius. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    were introduced. Chemistry at that time con- sisted of a large number of descriptions of known substances and their use in the daily life, their occurrence and their preparation in accordance with the most reliable receipts, given by the foremost masters of the hermetic {i.e. occult) art. In the same manner Biochemistry up to a quite recent time consisted of a great number of descrip- tions of different products accompanying living organisms, their properties, use, and their composi- tion, i.e. their content of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus or perhaps other elementary substances. If possible this composition was ex- pressed by means of a chemical formula. But even the quantitative element which is con- tained in an analysis of the composition of a sub- stance was lacking in cases where the substances investigated occur in such small proportions that it is not possible to isolate them in a pure form. We have no other possibility of describing these substances than by indication of their occurrence and mode of preparation in the most concentrated and purest possible form, with an indication of their character- istic properties, unless we employ methods other than those belonging to the old classical science of Chemistry. Only by the use of the methods introduced by the modern physical chemistry is it possible to form an opinion of the manner in which these substances react, and thereby to get a clear scientific idea of their nature. The fundamental fact must here be recalled that these substances
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