Researches on the molecular dissymmetry of natural organic products : presented to the Chemical Society of Paris, January 20 and February 3, 1860 / by L. Pasteur ; translated from "Leçons de chimie professées en 1860" by W.S.W. Ruschenberger.

  • Pasteur, Louis, 1822-1895.
Date:
[1862]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches on the molecular dissymmetry of natural organic products : presented to the Chemical Society of Paris, January 20 and February 3, 1860 / by L. Pasteur ; translated from "Leçons de chimie professées en 1860" by W.S.W. Ruschenberger. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    n\ [From the American Journal of Pharmacy, January, 1862.] RESEARCHES ON THE MOLECULAR DISSYMMETRY OF NATURAL ORGANIC PRODUCTS. By L. Pasteur, Member of the Chemical Society of Paris. Presented to the Chemical Society of Paris, January 20 and February 3, 1860. Translated from Legons do Chimie profes- sees en 1860. By W. S. W. Ruschenberger, M. D., U. S. Navy. INTRODUCTION. These lectures were prepared on the invitation of the Council of the Chemical Society of Paris. The researches of which they present a rapid summary have occupied me during ten consecutive years. I had often thought of collecting them, of minutely reviewing the details, and adding to them all the developments necessary to the co-ordination of the differ- ent memoirs in which they appeared for the first time. But there is in the life of every man devoted to the experimental sciences an age when the value of time is inestimable: this rapid age, in which the spirit of invention flourishes, in which every year ought to be marked by an ad- vance. To stop, then, voluntarily at things acquired, is a restraint and a danger, which the pleasure and even utility of seeing our ideas expand in accordance with our desires too well compensate. As much as I have recoiled before the laborious task of collecting, of peifecting my researches on the molecular dissymmetry of natural or- ganic products, in the same degree I have yielded eagerly to the prayer of many members of the Chemical Society, to publish the two lectures in which I was charged to set forth the principal results at which I had ar- rived. Few studies have been better received at the time of their suc- cessive appearance, and, nevertheless, I have many proofs that they were scarcely known. I hope, then, that this publication may be of some use. But should there be nothing beyond the interest which these lectures have excited in the distinguished assembly before which they were delivered, I shall be suffi- ciently recompensed for my labors.