14 INTRODUCTORY 



V. ADVANTAGES OF THE BIOCENTRIC TREATMENT 

 OF SYNTHETICAL CHEMISTRY 



In one sense every definite organic compound known to science 

 may be said to nave relationships with every other organic compound. 

 These inter-relations are necessarily extremely complex, being some- 

 times hypothetical as in relationships of chemical type and in other 

 cases real or genetic with few or many intermediate stages. The 

 progress of discovery in this department of chemistry consists largely 

 in substituting genetic for hypothetical relationships, and among the 

 advantages incidental to the mode of treatment adopted in this work 

 may be claimed the bringing into prominence, not only of the rela- 

 tionships between the vital products themselves, but likewise the 

 inter-relations among the intermediate compounds which are transition 

 stages between one synthetical product and another. The relations 

 between the vital products are, as frequently dwelt upon, of special 

 biochemical interest ; the relations between the intermediate com- 

 pounds are of more purely chemical interest. The intermediate stages 

 may or may not turn out to be of biochemical significance ; in the 

 present state of knowledge it is desirable that all inter-relationships 

 should be borne in mind, and in view of the ever-increasing complexity 

 of the connexions between organic compounds revealed by chemical 

 discovery it has been felt that some such work as the present would 

 furnish an opportunity of presenting this aspect of the subject in 

 a manner that cannot but be helpful to students from whatever point 

 of view they may be approaching the science. 



As already explained, the time is not yet ripe for discriminating 

 precisely between biochemical and purely chemical relationships ; the 

 work could not therefore be cast either in a purely physiological mould 

 or in a purely chemical mould, and its present arrangement appeals to 

 both classes of students. In the future it may be possible, when our 

 synthetical methods have come more into line with the biochemical 

 methods, to prepare a treatise on synthetical chemistry in which every 

 vital product shall be genetically connected with every compound to 

 which it gives rise by intermediate compounds, each one of which is 

 also a vital product. In other words, the ideal biochemical treatise of 

 the future may be cast on similar lines to the present work, but for 

 non- vital intermediate stages there will be substituted, by the dis- 

 covery of new and perhaps quite unsuspected synthetical methods, 

 series, more or less numerous, of vital intermediate compounds. The 

 fact that the intermediate stages are now so largely represented by 

 non-vital compounds is a measure of our ignorance of biochemical 

 processes. In the other direction the ideal treatise on pure chemical 

 synthesis towards which considerably greater progress has already 

 been made will contain records of genetic relationships starting, let 



