Organic chemistry vital-force theory

Ironically, Wohler, the first person to s)mthesize an organic compound from inorganic substances, devoted the rest of his career to inorganic chemistry. However, other chemists continued this work, and as a result, the "vital force theory" was laid to rest, and modern organic chemistry was born. 

Key Terms Vital-force theory Organic chemistry... 

Most of these organic compounds contained carbon. For this reason, even after the demise of the vital force theory, it was natural to retain the term organic chemistry to refer to the chemistry of carbon compounds. This definition is not precise, however organic chemists do not usually concern themselves with carbonate rocks, such as limestone, CaCOg. Some definitions require that a compound have at least one C—H or C—halogen bond to be classified as organic, but even this would incorrectly exclude carbon disulfide, CSg, and urea, (HaN)jC=0. Thus, there is no exact definition of organic chemistry. ... 

The term organic chemistry was first used by the Swedish chemist Berzelius in 1807 (Larsson, 1981). He coined the name to describe the chemistry of substances derived from living matter. Berzelius was a staunch believer in the vis vitalis theory, which held that such substances were endowed with a mystical vital force that precluded their synthesis in the laboratory from materials of mineral origin. Ironically, it was a student of Berzelius, Wohler, who heralded the demise of vitalism with his synthesis of urea from ammonium cyanate (Wohler, 1928). In a letter to Berzelius in 1828, Wohler wrote I must tell you that I can make urea without requiring kidneys, or even an animal, whether a human being or a dog . 

Until the mid-eighteenth century, scientists believed organic compounds came only from live plants and animals. They reasoned that organisms possessed a vital force that enabled them to produce organic compounds. The first serious blow to this theory of vitalism, which marked the beginning of modern organic chemistry, occurred when Friedrich Wohler (1800-1882) synthesized urea from the two inorganic substances lead cyanate and ammonium hydroxide ... 

Vitalism occupied the epistemological gap in life science that began to close definitively only with the emergence in molecular genetics of a theory that finally clarified the mechanisms that sorted and ordered material elements into living organisms, that produced the invariant replication of species, and that enabled the retention of evolutionary variations as they randomly arose. The doctrine of the life force began with the reasonable idea that the new chemistry of its... 

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