CHEMISTRY 193 



occur, and as a rule he had little to do with 

 physiological or biological chemistry. Not 

 that he was now ever disposed to distinguish 

 between substances which happened to occur 

 in living organisms and others ; for at length 

 he had completely accepted the view that, 

 apart possibly from a few complicated sub- 

 stances like the proteins, such distinctions 

 are thoroughly irrational. But the nature of 

 the subject and the historical accidents of 

 its development directed his attention in the 

 main elsewhere. 



Nevertheless, the distinction between or- 

 ganic chemistry as the science of all the com- 

 pounds of carbon, and inorganic chemistry 

 as the science of all other chemical compounds 

 whatever has persisted, and not without 

 sound reasons. In the course of the wonder- 

 ful development of organic chemistry, which 

 must ever be counted as one of the greatest 

 achievements of the nineteenth century, enor- 

 mous numbers of new chemical substances 

 were discovered. In 1883 the number of 

 carbon compounds had reached 20,000, in 

 1899, 74,000, and in 1902 it exceeded 100,000.* 



1 See M. M. Richter, "Lexikon der Kohlenstoffverbindun- 

 gen," Hamburg and Leipzig, 1900, continued in supplemen- 

 tary volumes. This work catalogues all the compounds of 

 carbon as they come to light. 



