Infant enzyme chemistry

When this book was first planned, the idea in mind was to review, through a series of personal but related essays, the major impact that the study of enzymes has had upon some important fields of chemistry in the last thirty years. It was therefore something of a surprise to discover in the nineteenth century literature that enzymes had already prompted a great deal of chemical research, some of it with a remarkably modern ring, as I shall try to show in the next few pages. As early as 1833 observations had been made of the phenomenon of the natural hydrolysis of potato starch but with vitalistic concepts still much in people’s minds, it was difficult to accept the existence of biological catalysts. The idea that enzymes are chemicals provoked prolonged scepticism and controversy. During the first half of the nineteenth century further naturally occurring reactions were recognized, in particular fermentations involving yeasts. On the one hand, it was held that the enzymic activity responsible for these fermentations was a property inseparable from living cells. Pasteur, amongst others, took this view. On the other hand, Liebig and, not surprisingly, Wohler, regarded enzymes as chemical catalysts, albeit of unknown constitution, that could be separated from cells. Indeed these two may well have conspired to lampoon vitalism in an anonymous paper in Liebig’s Annalen der Pharmacie (Anon., 1839).