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The Enigma of Ferment: From the Philosopher's Stone to the First Biochemical Nobel Prize PDF

170 Pages·2006·3.436 MB·English
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5900.tp(path) 18/10/05 1:31 PM Page 1 H FERMENT FROM THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE TO THE FIRST BIOCHEMICAL NOBEL PRIZE TThhiiss ppaaggee iinntteennttiioonnaallllyy lleefftt bbllaannkk 5900.tp(path) 18/10/05 1:31 PM Page 2 THE ENIGMA OF FERMENT FROM THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE TO THE FIRST BIOCHEMICAL NOBEL PRIZE Ulf Lagerkvist Gothernburg Uuiversity, Sweden World Scientific NEW JERSEY LONDON SINGAPROE BEIJING SHANGHAI HONG KONG TAIPEI CHENNAI Published by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224 USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601 UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. THE ENIGMA OF FERMENT From the Philosopher’s Stone to the First Biochemical Nobel Prize Copyright © 2005 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher. ISBN 981-256-421-7 (pbk) Printed in Singapore. Contents Preface vii Introduction 1 Medicine in Ancient Greece 3 Classic Medicine After Hippocrates 7 Islamic Medicine 10 The Revival of Western Medicine 13 Infectious Diseases 14 A New Anatomy 19 Harvey and the Blood Circulation 21 Alchemy and the Dawn of Chemistry 27 The Gold-Makers 29 Iatrochemistry — A Chemical Explanation 33 The Man on the Balance 41 Medicine and Chemistry in the Scientific Revolution 45 Speculative Medicine — The System Builders 47 Corpuscles and Nitrous Air 55 Metallurgy and Spas 59 Combustion and Respiration 69 A Golden Age of Chemistry 77 Proportions in Chemistry 79 Atoms and Molecules 81 Atomic Weights and Symbols 87 Ferment or Vital Force 93 Vitalism and Natural Philosophy 95 Animal Chemistry 99 The Meaning of Ferment 104 A Fortuitous Observation 117 The Nobel Prize 129 Idealism and Dynamite 131 A Momentous Will 135 Creating the Nobel Foundation 137 v 01-content.indd 5 9/16/2005 9:37:23 AM vi The Enigma of Ferment The Early Chemical Nobel Prizes 142 The First Biochemical Laureate 145 Serendipity in Research 149 Bibliography 157 Index 159 01-content.indd 6 9/16/2005 9:37:23 AM Preface The aim of this book is to give a popular account of the history of the ferment, that from its obscure origin in medieval medicine and alchemy, gradually developed into the modern concept of the enzyme. The history of ferment and generally of biochemistry has always been intimately associated with that of medicine. It is therefore necessary to begin the book with a fairly extensive introductory chapter that attempts to summarize the development of medicine from the days of Hippocrates to the scientific revolution in the 17th century. In the following chapters, the focus is on the transformation of chemistry and biochemistry from a collection of recipes to a science in its own right, with an intellectually satisfactory theoretical background comparable to that of physics, the most advanced of the natural sciences. During the 19th century, the question of the nature of ferment leads to the long drawn out, bitter conflict between the “vitalists,” who believed in a “vital force” peculiar to the living cell, and their opponents, the “chemists” who regarded “vital force” as superstition and instead advocated chemical explanations of the same kind as in ordinary test tube experiments. The dispute can be said to have centered on the question of alcoholic fermentation. Was this the exclusive privilege of the living yeast cell or could it in principle take place outside the cell, catalyzed by soluble ferments? For a long time the vitalists, under their chieftain Louis Pasteur, seemed to have the upper hand, but finally in 1897 Eduard Buchner was able to demonstrate cell-free alcoholic fermentation in an extract of yeast. This definitely put an end to vitalism and at the same time won Buchner a Nobel Prize, the first to be awarded for a purely biochemical work. The last part of the book is focused on this event. Finally, it should be pointed out that this book is intended primarily for the layman reader and does not presuppose any knowledge of biochemistry and enzymes. At the same time, the author wants of course to present something more than entertaining chatter and hopes to strike a reasonable balance between scientific ambition and the wish to popularize. I am greatly indebted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and its Chemical Nobel Committee for generously giving me access to their archive with information on Eduard Buchner. I am very grateful to the librarian of the Academy of Sciences, Christer Wijkström, for valuable help with the illustrations of this book. I am greatly indebted to Jacques Fresco who was kind enough to read the manuscript and give helpful opinions. vii 02-preface.indd 7 9/16/2005 9:39:22 AM TThhiiss ppaaggee iinntteennttiioonnaallllyy lleefftt bbllaannkk I NTRODUCTION 03-introduction.indd 1 9/16/2005 9:04:38 AM

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