1897.] Scope and Present Position of Biochemistry. 275 
chemical matter could appear, and thus brought to a focus a 
number of lines of effort which had formerly been scattered in 
chemical, physiological and agricultural publications. The 
founding of the Strassburg Institute and Professorship was the 
official birth of biochemistry. 
But, although great progress has been made since Hoppe- 
Seyler opened his first laboratory in the kitchen of the old 
castle in Tiibingen, the position of the biochemist in Germany 
is still behind that in many other European countries. The 
Strassburg Institute remains the only purely biochemical insti- 
tute in Germany. In many German universities the biochem- 
ists are nominally full professors of physiology, as in Heidelberg 
(Kühne), Marburg (Kossel), and Munich (Voit); in others, 
besides the full professor (ordinarius) of physiology there is 
an associate professorship (extraordinarius) in physiological 
chemistry. This is the casein Berlin (Thierfelder) and Breslau 
(Réhmann). In still others the professors of pharmacology 
take over the duties of the biochemist, as in Rostock (Nasse), 
Königsberg (Jafié), Giessen (Gihtgens) and Halle. In Tiibin- 
gen the physiological chemist is called professor of applied 
(angewandte) chemistry, and belongs to the philosophical 
faculty ; in Freiburg he is professor of chemistry and belongs 
to the medical faculty; in Leipsic he is a privat docent (in- 
structor) in the physiological institute. In the universities of 
Gottingen, Kiel and Wiirzburg there is no special instruction 
in this science. In Germany, therefore, although the science 
is recognized in nearly all universities, and its teachers in many 
cases full professors, they are generally handicapped by being 
required to teach chemistry, physiology, or pharmacology. 
Outside of Germany the situation is generally more favor- 
able. In Austria the universities (Prague, Vienna and Gratz) 
have professorships in medical chemistry. In Switzerland 
there are professorships of physiological chemistry in Basel 
(Bunge) and Berne(Drechsel). At Zürich there is none, though 
a good deal of work is done in the agricultural chemical labora- 
tories. In Norway, at Christiania, there is no chair of physi- 
ological chemistry. In Russia nearly all the universities— 
Moscow, St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Kieff, etc—have chairs of 
