Physiological Chemists

Professional chemists look askance at physiological chemistry, and physiological chemists criticize pretty sharply the work of some clinical chemists, but there can be no doubt of the value to the physicians of a very thorough training in methods and ways of organic chemistry. 

B.C.) of the Ionian colony of Miletus in Asia Minor proposed that matter consists of the universal element water. This statement would be even more impressive in German Wasserstoff or Swedish (vdte), referring to hydrogen. In 1815 the English physiological chemist William Prout (1785-1850) pointed out... 

Paracetamol (acetaminophen) was synthesised first in 1888 as an intermediate in the synthesis of phenacetin. Unfortunately, the organic chemists at Bayer never tested this compoimd for its medicinal properties. The prevailing thought at the time was that phenols were too toxic for clinical use. It was the Swedish physiological chemist, Karl Morner in 1891 who discovered that paracetamol (acetaminophen) was a urinary metabolite of phenacetm. This is a result of the 0-de-ethylation of phenacetin... 

Hofmeister, Franz (1850-1922), physiological chemist and pioneer of protein structure. He succeeded Hoppe-Seyler at Strasbourg, where he led a productive research school. Franz Hofineister and EmU Fischer exerted both, each in his own way, a significant influence on the development of the biochemical sciences. Already in 1902, at a historical meeting at Karlsbad, Franz Hofineister first formulated scientifically the assumption of an amide-like linkage of the individual amino acids in proteins, four years before Fischer coined the term peptide [F. Hofmeister, Naturw. Rdsch. 1902, 17, 529]. 

The physiologists and the physiological chemists started the exploration of the chemical composition of bone and later of calcium and phosphorus metabolism. The chemical composition of bones in rickets (Bibra, 1844 Marchand, 1842 Friedleben, 1860), and in osteomalacia (Frey, 1863 Weber, 1867 Huppert, 1867 and others), established the fact that the affected bones, as compared with normal bones, were richer in water and poorer in ash, the constituents of which were mainly calcium and phosphorus. This gave impetus to the study of mineral metabolism, and the early work on calcium metabolism as related to composition of bone dates back to Chossat (1842), Edwards (1861), Weiske (1871), and Voit (1892). 

In the late winter of 1938-39, when I was writing my Ph.D. thesis at the California Institute of Technology on the presence of carbonic anhydrase in the parietal cells, I was quite naturally thinking about the mechanism of acid secretion. I encountered two abstracts by Martin E. Hanke, a physiological chemist at the University of Chicago. The first began A new theory has been developed for the chem-... 

In the terminology of the day, pepsin was an unorganized ferment, in contrast to an organizedferment such as yeast. In 1878 Willi Kuhne called unorganized ferments enzymes, because they come from within yeast or other cells. In Kiihne s time and well into the twentieth century, physiologists and physiological chemists debated whether pepsin and other enzymes are or are not proteins. 

In the next 10 years, physiological chemists and gastroenterologists separated four or more pepsins from human gastric mucosal tissue and from urine by means of column chromatography, and some verified the individuality of the fractions by electrophoresis. Some fractions were probably identical to Ryle s parapepsins, but other enzymes obtained from rats, rabbits, dogs, and guinea pigs were distinctly different. ... 

Lc Col James H. Defandorf, Sanitary Corps (pharmacologist) Maj E. A. Richmond (entomologist) Maj A. T. Thompson, VC Capt Frank M. Shertz (plant pathologist) and 1st Lt Luman F. Ney (physiological chemist). 

Glycei o-phosphoric acid, hitherto of no jiractical importance, is a very interesting body to the physiological chemist, because it forms an essential constituent of tlie nerve substance of the alveolus, and of egg-yolk. 

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