10 GENERAL BIOCHEMISTRY 



BEGINNINGS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 



Physiological chemistry or animal chemistry is an outgrowth of 

 animal physiology. Experimental physiology was recognized as an 

 independent division of science as early as 1800. To be sure, William 

 Harvey had announced his discoveries regarding blood circulation as 

 early as 1628. Similar progress had been made in the study of respira- 

 tion. Robert Boyle had studied the effect of low and high air pressure 

 on animals as early as 1659. Other important information regarding 

 respiration was added by Robert Hooke (1667), John Mayow (1668), 

 John Priestley (1774-1777), and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1777). 

 However, it was not until the latter part of the nineteenth century 

 that experimental physiology really became recognized as a separate 

 division of science. 



The same trends were characteristic of the research on digestion 

 and metabolism. Sanctorius of Padua (1614) had called attention to 

 "insensible perspiration" and gain and loss of body weight as affected 

 by food intake. Regnier de Graaf (1664) had described the properties 

 of pancreatic juice, and Spallanzani (1782) the effect of saliva and 

 gastric juice on foods. No important chemical techniques were ad- 

 vocated, although William Prout (1785-1850) identified hydrochloric 

 acid in gastric juice. Prout is referred to by many writers as the first 

 English physiological chemist. William Beaumont, an American 

 physician, published his classical work on gastric digestion in 1833. 

 During the same period (1600-1850) similar progress had been made 

 in many other phases of experimental physiology. 



However, it was not until the period 1850 to 1880 that experimental 

 physiology and physiological chemistry really achieved some degree of 

 recognition. Even as late as 1800 to 1900 there seemed to be no great 

 appreciation of the value of the application of chemistry to physiology. 

 Chittenden, in his Development of Physiological Chemistry in the 

 United States, credits Michael Foster with the establishment of the first 

 practical instruction of physiology in England in 1874. 



Henry P. Bowditch, who had studied under Carl Ludwig in Leipzig, 

 returned to the United States in 1871 and accepted the chair of physi- 

 ology at Harvard University. Since at that time laboratory work was 

 not considered essential, he had few facilities for experimental work. 

 Nevertheless, with a few pieces of apparatus he had brought from 

 Germany he set up a small laboratory in the attic of the medical build- 



