Biochemistry: A Cross-Disciplinary Endeavor That Discovered a Distinctive Domain

Abstract

While the quest to explain physiological phenomena in chemical terms has a long history, the development of a distinct cross-disciplinary research area in physiological chemistry was a product of the later part of the 19th century that came to full fruition only at the beginning of the 20th century. There are several factors that led to biochemistry becoming a flourishing area of science at this time. One of these was the intense effort directed toward discipline building by some of the original pioneers (see Kohler, 1982). Another was the development of a clear conception of the kind of process that was thought to be involved in intermediary metabolism. The idea that intermediary metabolism consisted of a sequence of basic chemical reactions opened up a domain of inquiry that was of significance to researchers from a variety of disciplinary orientations. In the previous paper Holmes has explored this issue in some depth, showing how the idea of a metabolic pathway emerged and researchers committed their efforts to identifying the intermediate reactions constitutive of metabolic processes.