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The strategy of biological research programmes: Reassessing the ‘dark age’ of biochemistry, 1910–1930

Pages 139-150 | Received 06 Oct 1989, Published online: 23 Aug 2006

  • Rosenberg , Alexander . 1985 . The Structure of Biological Science Cambridge See also ‘Conference on Explanation in Biology: Historical, Philosophical, and Scientific Aspects; Journal of the History of Biology, 2 (1969), 1–268, especially articles of K. F. Schaffner and C. Grobstein. See also M. Grene, The Understanding of Nature, Volume xxiii, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Dordrecht and Boston, 1974).
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  • Florkin , M. 1972–77 . A History of Biochemistry Vol. 3 , Amsterdam Comprehensive Biochemistry, edited by M. Florkin and E. H. Stotz, Volume xxx–xxxiii, especially ‘The Dark Age of Biocolloidology’, 279–84.
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  • Edsall . 1962 . Proteins as Macromolecules. An Essay on The Development of the Macromolecule Concept and some of its Vicissitudes . Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics , : 20 – 20 .
  • Edsall . 1962 . Proteins as Macromolecules. An Essay on The Development of the Macromolecule Concept and some of its Vicissitudes . Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics , : 12 – 12 .
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  • Kohler , R. 1973 . The background to Otto Warburg's conception of the Atmungsferment . Journal of the History of Biology , 6 : 171 – 192 .
  • Kohler , R. 1973 . The background to Otto Warburg's conception of the Atmungsferment . Journal of the History of Biology , 6 : 192 – 192 .
  • Loc cit
  • Loc cit 176 – 176 .
  • Loc cit 172 – 172 .
  • Olby , R.C. 1986 . “ Structural and Dynamic Explanations in the World of Neglected Dimensions ” . In A History of Embryology Edited by: Horder , T.J. , Witkowsky , J.A. and Wylie , C.C. 275 – 308 . Cambridge (p. 302)
  • Mazumdar , P.M.H. 1989 . “ The Template Theory of Antibody Formation and the Chemical Synthesis of the Twenties ” . In Immunology 1930–1980 Edited by: Mazumdar , P.M.H. 13 – 32 . Toronto (p. 14)
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  • Hall , T.S. 1975 . History of General Physiology Vol. 2 , Chicago
  • Brücke , C. 1861 . Die Elementarorganismen . Wiener Sitzungsberichte , 44 : 381 – 406 . cited in J. S. Fruton, Molecules and Life: Historical Essays on the Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (New York, 1972), p. 386.
  • See, for example Hughes Arthur A History of Cytology London and New York 1959 also A. G. Pearse, Histochemistry, Theoretical and Applied (London, 1953), 1–12. Also George Clark and F. H. Kasten, History of Staining, third edition (Baltimore, 1983).
  • See Bütschli Otto Investigations on Microscopic Foams and on protoplasm London 1894 157 330 translated by E. Minchin
  • Altmann , R. 1890 . Die Elementarorganismen und ihre Beziehung zu den Zellen Leizig
  • Delage , Y. 1895 . La structure du Protoplasma; Les Théories de l'Hérédité, et les grandes problèmes de la Biologie Paris
  • See Medical Selection for Life Insurance Texas State Journal of Medicine 1916 12
  • For a discussion of these models see Hall History of General Physiology Chicago 1975 2 In the British context, see also P. L. Latham, ‘Some Points in the Pathology of Rheumatism, Gout, and Diabetes’, British Medical Journal, 1 (1886), 629–36, 674–81, 730–37. See also O. Loew The Energy of the Living Protoplasm (London, 1896).
  • Verworn , Max . 1903 . Die Biogenhypothese Jena
  • On Kühne see Dictionary of Scientific Biography [hereafter DSB] New York 1973 VII 519 521
  • On Heidenhain see DSB New York 1972 VI 224 226 See also G. Geison, Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology: The Scientific Enterprise in Late Victorian Society (Princeton, N. J. 1978).
  • Culotta , C. 1970 . Tissue Oxidation and Theoretical Physiology: Bernard, Ludwig, and Pflüger . Bulletin of the History of Medicine , 44 : 109 – 140 .
  • Hardy , William Bate . 1936 . “ To Remind: A Biological Essay ” . In Collected Scientific Papers of Sir William Bate Hardy 896 – 917 . Cambridge
  • Kohler , R. 1971 . The Background to Eduard Buchner's Discovery of Cell Free Fermentation . Journal of the History of Biology , 4 : 35 – 61 . and ‘The Reception of Eduard Buchner's Discovery of Cell Free Fermentation’, Ibid., 5 (1972), 327–55.
  • Hofmeister , F. 1901 . Die Chemische Organisation der Zelle Braunschweig F. G. Hopkins, ‘The Dynamic Side of Biochemistry’, Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Birmingham, 1913), reprinted in Hopkins (footnote 3), 136–59.
  • Kohler , R. 1982 . From Medical Chemistry to Biochemistry, the making of a Biomedical Discipline Cambridge
  • Hopkins . 1913 . “ The Dynamic Side of Biochemistry ” . In Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 137 – 137 . Birmingham
  • See also the writings of E. S. Russell, Hans Driesch, J. H. Woodger, and J. C. Smuts. See also Hopkins A Lecture of Organicism Delivered upon an Unknown Occasion Hopkins and Biochemistry 1861–1947 Hopkins Needham J. Baldwin E. Cambridge 1949 179 190
  • Hopkins . 1913 . “ The Dynamic Side of Biochemistry ” . In Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 150 – 151 . Birmingham
  • Allen , G. 1976 . Life Sciences in the Twentieth Century 161 – 162 . Cambridge See also O. Warburg, ‘Uber Beziehungen zwischen Zellstruktur und biochemischen Reacktionen I’, Pflügers Archiv fur die gesamte Physiologie des Menschen und der Tiere, 145 (1912), 277–82. On Warburg generally, see H. Krebs, Otto Warburg. Cell Biologist, Biochemist and Eccentric (Oxford, 1982). See also Kohler, footnote 11.
  • Hopkins . 1913 . “ The Dynamic Side of Biochemistry ” . In Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 153 – 153 . Birmingham
  • Hardy . 1916 . Some Problems of Living Matter , Guthrie Lecture 592 – 608 . (footnote 31)
  • For biography, see Fruton J.S. DSB New York 1978 XV 201 222 F. G. Hopkins, Biochemical Journal, 28 (1934), 1149–52; E. K. Rideal Transactions of the Faraday Society, 60 (1964), 1681–87; F. C. Bate-Smith, Sir William Bate Hardy, Biologist, Physicist and Food scientist (Cambridge, 1964). Loeb wrote that Hardy's concept of the isoelectric point ‘must be considered as the starting point for the physical chemistry of proteins’ (J. Loeb, Proteins and the Theory of Colloidal Behaviour, second edition (London, 1924), p. 6.) J. T. Edsall writes of him as ‘one of the great pioneers of protein physical chemistry’ (Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 325 (1979), 62). Joseph Needham was much influenced by Hardy, and the nature of supra and intramolecular organisation was a main focus of interest for the Theoretical Biology Club generally. See, e.g., J. Needham, Order and Life (Cambridge, 1930). For a discussion of the continuing research inspired by Hardy, see D. J. Harraway, Crystals, Fabrics and Fields: Metaphors of Organicism in Twentieth Century Developmental Biology (New Haven, 1976). On Loeb, see Philip Pauly, Controlling Life: Jaques Loeb and the Engineering Idea in Biology (Oxford, 1987).
  • Hardy . 1916 . Some Problems of Living Matter , Guthrie Lecture 592 – 592 . (footnote 31)
  • The phrase is from Ostwald K.W. Introduction to Theoretical and Applied Colloid Science: The World of Neglected Dimensions New York 1917 translated by M. H. Fischer See also R. Olby, ‘Structural and Dynamic Explanations in the World of Neglected Dimensions’ in History of Embryology, the Eighth Symposium of the British Society of Developmental Biology, edited by T. J. Horder, J. A. Witkowsky, and C. C. Wylie (Cambridge, 1986).
  • Hardy . 1936 . “ To Remind: A Biological Essay ” . In Collected Scientific Papers of Sir William Bate Hardy 248 – 293 . Cambridge Three years earlier Alfred Fischer showed that fixation could artificially produce the granular ‘mitochondria’ reported by Altmann. See Alfred Fischer, Fixierung, Farbung und Bau des Protoplasmas (Jena, 1896).
  • For a general discussion of colloid science, see Partington J.R. A History of Chemistry London and New York 1961–1970 IV 4 vols (1970). Only three historians have ever explicitly pointed out that colloidology might have any relevance to the development of biochemistry. They are Claude Debrue, in L'Ésprit des Proteines, Histoire et Philosophie Biochemique (Paris, 1983), E. Glas in his Chemistry and Physiology in their Historical and Philosophical Relations (Delft, 1979), pp. 147–151, and more recently and in greater depth Olby (see footnote 43).
  • Faraday , M. 1857 . Experimental relations of gold and other metals to light . Philosophical Transactions , : 145 – 182 . Colloid was first used to describe a glue like state in pathology by R. B. Todd, Cyclopedia of Anatomy and Physiology (London, 1836), p. 694.
  • Graham , T. 1861 . Liquid Diffusion Applied to Analysis . Philosophical Transactions , : 183 – 224 .
  • From 1907, Zsigmondy was director of the institute for inorganic chemistry at the University of Göttingen. See Zsigmondy R. Colloids and the Ultramicroscope New York 1909 The ultramicroscope uses perpendicular illumination, and makes it possible to view individual colloid particles by scattered light (Tyndall effect). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925 in chemistry ‘for his elucidation of the heterogeneous nature of colloid solutions and for the method he has devised in this connection, which has since become of fundamental importance in modern colloid chemistry’.
  • Ostwald , W. 1909 . Grundriss der Kolloid-chemie Dresden translated by M. H. Fischer as A Handbook of Colloid Chemistry (London, 1915).
  • 1906–13 . The Zeitschrift für Chemie und Industrie der Kolloid continued as the Kolloid-Zeitschrift (1913-present).
  • See Pauly Controlling Life: Jaques Loeb and the Engineering Idea in Biology Oxford 1987
  • Debrue . 1983 . L'Esprit des Proteines, Histoire et Philosophie Biochemique 114 – 114 . Paris
  • Hardy . 1936 . “ On the coagulation of proteins by electricity ” . In Collected Scientific Papers of Sir William Bate Hardy 297 – 307 . Cambridge
  • Hardy . 1936 . “ On the coagulation of proteins by electricity ” . In Collected Scientific Papers of Sir William Bate Hardy 323 – 336 . Cambridge 349–426, 431–43
  • Hardy . 1936 . “ Molecular Organisation in Living Matter ” . In Collected Scientific Papers of Sir William Bate Hardy 799 – 801 . Cambridge
  • Adams , N.K. 1930 . Physics and the Chemistry of Surfaces London
  • On Langmuir, see DSB 1973 VIII 22 25 See also H. Taylor Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 4 (1958), 167–84, and A. Rosenfeld, Langmuir: the Man and the Scientist (Oxford, 1962).
  • Picton , H. and Lindler , S. 1891 . Solutions and Pseudo Solutions . Proceedings of the Chemical Society , 7 : 177 – 177 . Parts I–III 10 (1895), 166–69; Journal of the Chemical Society, 61 (1892), 148–72; 67, (1895), 63–74; 71 (1897), 568–73. On Picton, see obiturary notice in Proceedings of the Chemical Society (1957), 102.
  • Hardy . 1936 . “ A Preliminary Investigation of the Conditions which Determine the Stability of Irreversible Hydrosols ” . In Collected Scientific Papers of Sir William Bate Hardy 308 – 321 . Cambridge
  • Hardy . 1936 . “ A Preliminary Investigation of the Conditions which Determine the Stability of Irreversible Hydrosols ” . In Collected Scientific Papers of Sir William Bate Hardy 310 – 310 . Cambridge
  • Sørenson , S.P.L. 1909 . Enzymstudien II: Über die Messung und die Bedeutung der Wasserstoff Ion-konzentration bei enzymatischen Prozessen . Biochemische Zeitschrift , 21 : 131 – 200 .
  • On Bjerrum, see DSB 1970 II 169 171
  • On Svedberg, see DSB 1976 XIII 159 216 J. T. Edsall, Trends In Biochemical Sciences, 3 (1978), 114–5; Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 18 (1972), 595–627. M. Kerber, ‘The Svedberg and Molecular Reality’, Isis, 67 (1976), 190–216.
  • The books were Bredig's Anorganische Fermente and R. Zsigmondy's Zur Erkenntnis der Kolloide
  • Svedberg , T. 1907 . Studien zur Lehre von den kolloiden Losungen . Nova Acta regiae Societatis scientiarum upsaliensis , 2 ( 1 ) : 1 – 160 . 4th series and Die Methoden zur Herstellung kolloider Losungen anorganischer Stoffe (Dresden and Leipzig, 1922).
  • Nye , M.J. 1972 . Molecular Reality London See also F. Lot, Jean Perrin (Paris, 1963); DSB, (1974), X, 524–6, and J. S. Townsend, Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 4 (1943), 301–5.
  • Svedberg , T. 1923 . The Determination of the Distribution of Size of Particle in Disperse Systems . Journal of the American Chemical Society , 45 : 943 – 954 . T. Svedberg and H. Rinde, ‘The Ultracentrifuge. A New Instrument for the Determination of Size, Distribution, and Shape of particles in a microscopic colloid’, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 46 (1924), 2677–93.
  • Svedberg , T. and Fahraens , R. 1926 . A New Method for the Determination of the Molecular Weight of Proteins . Journal of the American Chemical Society , 48 : 430 – 438 .
  • Fruton , J.S. 1972 . Molecules and Life: Historical Essays on the Interplay of Chemistry and Biology 136 – 137 . New York See P. Johnson and M. Perutz, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 27 (1981), 1–27.
  • Olby . 1970 . The Macromolecule Concept and the Origins of Molecular Biology . Journal of Chemical Education , 47 : 163 – 174 . (1976), XIII, 1–4

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