Relations and Transformations of Energy 37 



works of Czapek {2If), Hober (25\ and Duclaux (26). But the 

 labors of biochemists of the past quarter century have been so 

 fruitful that we have little hesitation in predicting the gradual 

 removal of all those distinctions, fundamental though they 

 may now appear. 



We will shortly touch on some of the evidences which incline 

 us to make the assertion. It is little more than half a century 

 since the chemist had to confess that no primary organic com- 

 pound — even the simplest, such as sugar — had been continu- 

 ously and synthetically built up from purely inorganic bodies 

 and by expenditure of thermic, chemic, electric, or other form 

 of energy. 



But when Wohler in 18''28 synthesized urea; Kolbe, in 1843, 

 obtained tetrachloride of carbon (CCI4); Melsens, in 1845, 

 methane (CH4); Kolbe, in 1845, bichloride of carbon (C2CI4); 

 Melsens, in 1844, acetic acid (C2H4O2); Kolbe, in 1849, ethane 

 (C2Hg); and then other investigators obtained acetone, chloro- 

 form, formic acid, ethylene, and oxalic acid, the barrier between 

 inorganic and organic bodies was removed, and the way was 

 paved for future biochemical study of all living compounds. 



When further, from 1860 onward, indigo, sugars, alizarine, 

 caffeine, theobromine, and other valuable "organic" products 

 had been synthesized, such formed a welcome advance from 

 the chemical side, that ran parallel with the simultaneous 

 acceptance of evolution, as the principle of cosmic as well as 

 biologic change. 



It is well however here, at once, to confess and to emphasize 

 that the above are all crystalloid bodies, and that while Fischer 

 and his coworkers have synthesized colloids even of complex 

 composition, this has been by using simpler organic compounds 

 in the process. 



Thus E. Fischer's synthesis of soluble poly])eptides, similar 

 to peptones, by the union of complex molecules of several 

 amino-acids represents perhaps the most advanced step in 

 organic synthesis. But the complicated methods employed, 

 and the relative complexity of the amino-acids from which 

 the initial start was made, prove how different are artificial 



