

Lactic Acid in Living Bodies. 131 



to make an objection was considered as guilty ; and the punish- 

 ment consisted in entirely censuring his labours on other sub- 

 jects, of which the school of Giessen endeavoured to nullify 

 the results, in order to diminish the reputation of the author. 

 This is the motive which determined M. Liebig to cause several 

 of my labours to be refuted by his pupils in the laboratory of 

 Giessen. 



The existence of lactic acid in the animal fluids was one of 

 these labours. The refutation of it was committed to M. En- 

 derlin, who stated formally, that it was on the invitation of 

 M. Liebig that he had undertaken it. The following are the 

 terms in which he discloses the fact that he had been called 

 to demonstrate by his experiments* : " It is absolutely impos- 

 sible to admit of the existence of lactic acid in the bodies of 

 these animals (Camivora), for this acid has not yet been founds 

 and their food does not contain any substance which can give 

 rise to itf." 



It is evident that the results of his experiments were to 

 agree with the commission which he had undertaken. He 

 demonstrated that he found none. Up to this point the master 

 might, apparently at least, defend himself, if the result should 

 be found to be inexact, by saying that the pupil had committed 

 a mistake; but he appears to have thought that M. Enderlin's 

 process was not sufficiently decisive, and he undertook the 

 demonstration himself. M. Liebig has declared % that the 

 experiments of M. Enderlin had proved that no animal fluid 

 contained lactic acid, that he had himself sought to confirm and 

 corroborate this result by the analysis of fresh and putrified 

 urine, and that he had not succeeded in finding it. He took 

 all possible pains to show to what extent my experiments were 

 unsatisfactory, and he expresses himself in this respect as fol- 

 lows § : " Wenn man die von Berzelius angestellten Versuche, 



* Ann. der Chem. und Pharm., xlvi. 166. 



f " Es ist durchaus unmoglich das Vorhandensein der Milchsaurein dem 

 Korper dieser Thiere (Carnivora) vorauszusetzen, da sie bis jetzt noch nicht 

 darin gefundcn warden ist, und die Nahrung keine Substanz enthalt aus 

 der sie enstehen konnte." 



J Ann. der Chem. und Pharm., I. 163. 



§ " When the experiments by which Berzelius has ascertained the pre- 

 sence of lactic acid in urine are closely examined, we arrive at the conclu- 

 sion that no one of them offers a proof that this acid is a constituent of fresh 

 urine." 



It is not uninteresting to give here, with respect to these data, the terms 

 employed by M. Liebig on the 21st December, 1846, in announcing to the 

 Chemical Society of London that he had discovered lactic acid in living 

 bodies : " After overcoming more difficulties than I have ever experienced 

 in any investigation, I have for the first time indisputably proved that free 

 lactic and phosphoric acid exist in the whole organism wherever muscle is 



K 2 



