Organic molecule

“ At present I should prefer any mad hypothesis, such as that every disintegrated molecule of the lowest forms can reproduce the parent-form, and that the molecules are universally distributed, and that they do not lose their vital power until heated to such a temperature that they decompose like dead organic particles. ”

“ For the redundant resources, we will take carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Then, for the adequate resources, we will examine nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
Carbon is the one element never left out of an organic compound. Its atoms are not only constituents, they are corner-stones of all the organic molecules. In the human body, thirteen parts in a hundred, or forty per cent, of the solids, are carbon. Looking for its supply, we see that it is obtained for the organic world by the plants, and from the carbonic-acid gas of the air. ”

“ It must not be understood that this force, which I finally came to control, annihilated matter; it merely annihilated form. Nor, as I soon discovered, had it any effect on inorganic structure; but to all organic form it was absolutely fatal. This partiality puzzled me at first, though had I stopped to think deeper I would have seen through it. Since the number of atoms in organic molecules is far greater than in the most complex mineral molecules, organic compounds are characterized by their instability and the ease with which they are split up by physical forces and chemical reagents. ”

“ By means of the electric furnace, Moissan, in France, has succeeded in uniting carbon with many of the metallic elements, and thus opened the path for new achievements in passing directly from inorganic to organic compounds.
202 The progress of chemical synthesis has already blotted out the old distinction between inorganic and organic chemistry, and we can no longer say of organic bodies that they are the products of living cells. Organic bodies are those which contain a carbon or other elementary skeleton, to which are attached the elements or groups of elements forming the complete body. ”

“ So the organic body is built on a chain or frame-work or skeleton of carbon atoms, about which are grouped the atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, or radicle compounds thereof.
It is not possible here to even name some of the more eminent workers who for a quarter of a century have contributed to our knowledge of organic chemistry. This branch of chemistry has been the vogue, and has been pushed almost to the limit of possibility since 1875. ”

“ But there are, besides, many compounds which are continually forming at such temperatures as now prevail on the surface of the earth, and most of these are very much more unstable than those last mentioned. The elements which chiefly enter into such compounds are oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon, all but the last named of which are gaseous at ordinary temperatures. The substances of this nature with which we are familiar are known as organic compounds, and such as we see are, in fact, the products of organized beings from the different parts of which they are obtained. ”

“ The chemist might go on continually manufacturing hydrogen and oxygen, carbon dioxide, ammonia. But he was never to hope to make alcohol, sugar, urea, any of the multitudinous substances called organic. And now all this folly of forbidding is at an end. The organic bodies are manufactured by man. The inorganic and the organic are no more regarded as clearly distinguishable. Even the chemistry books by their very titles recognise and proclaim this fact. We have no longer works on organic chemistry. We have volumes on the chemistry of carbon compounds. ”

“ The view long maintained—until late in the nineteenth century, in fact—that organic and inorganic chemistry are separated from each other by a wide gap, is no longer held. Hundreds of organic substances, some of them of great complexity, have been made in the chemist’s laboratory, and can now be classed as properly with inorganic as with organic substances. The gap has been closed, and there is now but one chemistry. Only the most intricate chemical compounds still lie beyond the chemist’s grasp, and the isolation of these may be at any time overthrown. ”

“ To enable us to say that we know anything about the experimental origination of organization and life, the investigator ought to be able to take inorganic matters, such as carbonic acid, ammonia, water, and salines, in any sort of inorganic combination, and be able to build them up into Protein matter, and then that Protein matter ought to begin to live in an organic form. ”

“ Compare CO and CO2. (3) In the arrangement of atoms, i.e. the molecular structure. Ethyl alcohol and methyl ether have the same number of the same elements, C2H6O, but their molecular structure is not the same, and hence their properties differ.
Qualitative analysis shows what elements enter into a compound; quantitative analysis shows the proportion of these elements; structural analysis exhibits molecular structure, and is the branch to which organic chemists are now giving particular attention. `
A specialist often works for years to synthesize a series of compounds in the laboratory. ”

“ An inorganic substance, on the contrary, however complex its formula may appear, is actually built up of binary compounds, the simplest that can be formed. But in the organic substance the carbon and hydrogen have a strong tendency to form carbonic acid; the hydrogen and oxygen to form water; the hydrogen and nitrogen to form ammonia; or, the hydrogen and the sulphur to form sulphuretted hydrogen, &c. In popular language, these changes are expressed by such terms as decay and putrefaction. ”

“ The fundamental task of inorganic chemistry is still connected with the classification of elements and compounds. The investigation of the classification of carbon compounds forms the field of organic chemistry; while general or physical chemistry deals with the laws of reaction, and the influence of various forms of energy in furthering or hindering chemical change. ”

“ Its bones become mere carbonate and phosphate of lime; the matter of its flesh, and of its other parts, becomes, in the long run, converted into carbonic acid, into water, and into ammonia. You will now, perhaps, understand the curious relation of the animal with the plant, of the organic with the inorganic world, which is shown in this diagram (Fig. 3) . ”

“ Thus we learn that chalk is a body consisting of two compound molecules,—carbonic acid, which is formed by the combination of an atom of carbon with two atoms of oxygen,—and lime, which results from the union of an atom of calcium with one of oxygen.
The condition requisite to the production of chemical action between bodies is that they should be dissimilar. Two elementary atoms are placed within the spheres of each other’s influences, and a compound molecule results. Oxygen and hydrogen form water; oxygen and carbon give rise to carbonic acid; nitrogen and hydrogen unite to form ammonia ”

“ So unwilling, however, are most men to relinquish old notions, that the resources of chemistry have been called in, to ascertain the supposed difference between organic and inorganic matter: it being asserted, that, in the organic world, there is a greater complexity of molecular combination, than in the inorganic. ”

“ This chlorophyl-tinged protoplasm is the substratum in which carbonic acid is deprived of its oxygen, and organically incorporated. Here, and here alone, organic substance originates in Nature. [1] It is the one magic gate through which the inorganic effects its passage into the organic; the one transubstantiating medium by which the death-like spell of inertness is broken and the dormant energies of matter admitted to bloom forth into life. ”

“ Compounds containing carbon enter into all the products of a living cell. For this reason the chemistry of carbon compounds came to be known as organic chemistry. This should not be taken as a definition, however, without limitations. Many of the compounds containing carbon are not known to enter into living tissue in any way, and their connection with it is very remote and not essential. On the other hand, it should be remembered that many organic compounds, and those even of most importance, contain some other element,—nitrogen, for example,—as the significant one. ”

“ For a similar reason the study of inorganic chemistry naturally precedes the study of organic chemistry, because inorganic compounds are much simpler and therefore more easily analysed and investigated than organic compounds. ”

“ That this particular feature belongs to carbon compounds is due to a property of carbon which characterizes the whole of organic chemistry, i.e. that atoms attached to carbon, to express it in the atomic style, cling more intensely to it than, for instance, when combined with oxygen. ”

“ Moreover, the important fact must be fully recognized that in living beings we have to do with no new elementary forms of matter. Precisely the same atoms which build up the inorganic fabric, compose the organic. In the early days of chemistry, indeed, it was supposed that the complicated molecules which life produced were beyond the reach of simple chemical law. But as more and more complex molecules have been, one after another, produced, chemistry has become re-assured, and now doubts not her ability to produce them all. ”

“ The preceding statements lead to the important conclusion, that the atmosphere is capable of affording an abundant supply of all the organic elements of plants, because it not only contains nitrogen and oxygen in the free state, but also in those forms of combination in which they are most readily absorbed, as well as a large quantity of carbonic acid, from which their carbon may be derived. ”

“ Chemistry divides creation into two distinct parts,—organic nature, and inorganic nature. Organic nature, comprising as it does all animal and vegetable creations which show an organization more or less perfect,—or, to be more exact, a greater or lesser motive power, which gives more or less sensibility,—is, undoubtedly, the more important part of our earth. Now, analysis has reduced all the products of this nature to four simple substances, namely: three gases, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, and another simple substance, non-metallic and solid, carbon. ”

“ But that is a matter of inorganic chemistry, you say. Very true. But I dare to assert, standing here on my two feet, that in the organic I can duplicate whatever occurs in the inorganic.
“Here!” He held a test-tube between me and the light, and I noted the cloudy or muddy liquid it contained. He emptied the contents of another test-tube into it, and almost instantly it became clear and sparkling.
“Or here!” With quick, nervous movements among his array of test-tubes, he turned a white solution to a wine color, and a light yellow solution to a dark brown. ”

“ We know that while they are chiefly composed of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, a large number of other elements enter into living bodies in small proportions; and it is likely that most of these enter into the composition of protoplasms. 250Now, since the numbers of chemical varieties increase at an enormous rate with the number of atoms per molecule, so that there are certainly hundreds of thousands of substances whose molecules contain twenty atoms or fewer, we may well suppose that the number of protoplasmic substances runs into the billions or trillions. ”

“ Almost the whole of the substances which have been called organic contain carbon, and are probably held together by the carbon atoms, so that many chemists are now inclined to abandon the name Organic Chemistry, and substitute the name Chemistry of the Carbon Compounds. ”

“ The vegetable matter has lost the principle of organic life, and, that gone, the tendency of all things being to be resolved into their most simple forms, a disunion of the elements commences: oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon pass off either in the gaseous state or as water, whilst some carbon is liberated in a very finely-divided condition, and enters slowly into combination with oxygen supplied by the water or the air. Hydrogenous compounds are at the same time formed, and, under all these circumstances, as in all other chemical phenomena, an alteration of temperature results. ”

“ The elements which play important parts in organic compounds are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, chlorine, bromine, iodine, sulphur, phosphorus and oxygen. We shall here consider the qualitative and quantitative determination of these elements.
Qualitative.—Carbon is detected by the formation of carbon dioxide, which turns lime-water milky, and hydrogen by the formation of water, which condenses on the tube, when the substance is heated with copper oxide. Nitrogen may be detected by the evolution of ammonia when the substance is heated with soda-lime. ”

“ The synthesis of other so-called organic compounds followed, and at present it is known that the same chemical laws apply to all substances whether formed in the living organism or prepared in the laboratory from inorganic constituents. ”

“ In organic as in inorganic chemistry, atoms are bound together by chemical affinity, though it was formerly supposed that an additional or vital force was instrumental in forming organic compounds. For this reason none of these substances, it was thought, could be built up in the laboratory, although many had been analyzed. In 1828 the first organic compound, urea, was artificially prepared, and since then thousands have been synthesized. They are not necessarily manufactured from organic products, but can be made from mineral matter. ”

“ The inorganic substance, however, on which mainly depend these metamorphoses in organic matter, is not swallowed along with the solid and liquid food, but is absorbed from the surrounding medium—air or water, as the case may be. Whether the oxygen taken in, either, as by the lowest animals, through the general surface, or, as by the higher animals, through respiratory organs, is the immediate cause of those molecular changes which are ever going on throughout the living tissues ”