THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST 
Ul. wa AK. April, 1897. 364 
THE SCOPE AND PRESENT POSITION OF BIO- 
CHEMISTRY. 
By ALBERT MATHEWS. 
The practical value of pure science is now so generally re- 
cognized that no excuse need be given for a plea on behalf of 
a neglected department. Especially is this true of a depart- 
ment which so closely concerns our bodily welfare as does 
physiological, or bio-, chemistry. This science has not received 
in America that recognition and support which its importance 
as an applied or pure science would warrant. This may be due, 
in part, at least, to a failure to realize that to biochemistry 
belong problems outside the scope of any other science ; it may, 
therefore, not be out of place to indicate briefly what some of 
these problems are, and to what position, in the world at large, 
this new science has now attained. 
Although it is impossible to define sharply the limits of a 
science it may be said, in a general way, that to biochemistry 
belong all problems of the chemistry of living matter, or of the 
chemistry of metabolism. It is thus the complement of the 
group of sciences treating of the forms and relationships of 
organisms, botany and zoology, and of the mechanics of organ- 
isms, or physiology proper. Touching each of these sciences 
closely, it receives from each special problems for solution. 
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