The dawn of the organic chemistry crosses the birth of biology

The dawn of the organic chemistry crosses the birth of biology - A radical turn in the development of new chemicals occurred when charcoal and then oil distillation offered so many opportunities. After the extract of paraffi n, carbon derivatives chemistry knew considerable developments with a lot of industrial consequences during the second third of the century.

Chemistry

organic molecules

The first organic molecules used for their therapeutic properties had acyclic structures: chloroform was discovered in 1831 by three independently working chemists: Eugene Soubeiran of France (1831), 9 Justus Von Liebig of Germany, 10 and Samuel Guthrie of the United States (1832). 11 Von Liebig taught chemistry through books like Organic Chemistry and its Application to Agriculture and Physiology (1840), and Organic Chemistry in its Application to Physiology and Pathology (1842) 12 and editing the journal that was to become the preeminent chemistry publication in Europe: Annalen der Chemie und Pharmazie. 

Liebig and Friedrich Wöhler ( Figure 1.3 ) began in 1825 various studies over two substances that had apparently the same composition – cyanic acid and fulminic acid – but very different characteristics. The silver compound of fulminic acid, investigated by Liebig was explosive; whereas Wöhler’s silver cyanate was not. These substances, called “ isomers” by Berzelius, lead chemists to suspect that substances were defi ned not simply by the number and kind of atoms in the molecule but also by the arrangement of those atoms. The most famous creation of an isomeric compound was Wöhler’s “ accidental ” synthesis of urea (1828), when failing to prepare ammonium cyanate. For the fi rst time someone prepared an organic compound by the means of inorganic ones. 13 That “ incident” made Wöhler saying: “ I can no longer, so to speak, hold my chemical water and must tell you that I can make urea without needing a kidney, whether of man or dog; the ammonium salt of cyanic acid is urea ”. 14 Liebig and Wöhler’s original objective was to interpret radicals as organic chemical equivalents of inorganic atoms. It was an early step along the path to structural chemistry. Organic chemistry precipitously entered the medicinal arena in 1856 when the youngster William Perkin, in an unsuccessful attempt to synthesize quinine, stumbled upon mauveine, the fi rst synthetic dye, leading to the development of many other synthetic dyes, which willgive birth few decades later to the fi rst antiseptic and antiinfectious drugs. Indeed, industrial world understood that some of these dyes could have therapeutic effects.