Urea Quotes (2 quotes)
In a manner of speaking, I can no longer hold my chemical water. I must tell you that I can make urea without the use of kidneys of any animal, be it man or dog. Ammonium cyanate is urea.
Letter from Wohler to Berzelius (22 Feb 1828). In O. Wallach (ed.), Briefwechsel zwischen J. Berzelius und F. Wohler (1901), Vol. 1, 206. Trans. W. H. Brock.
This investigation has yielded an unanticipated result that reaction of cyanic acid with ammonia gives urea, a noteworthy result in as much as it provides an example of the artificial production of an organic, indeed a so-called animal, substance from inorganic substances.
[The first report of the epoch-making discovery, that an organic compound can be produced from inorganic substances.]
[The first report of the epoch-making discovery, that an organic compound can be produced from inorganic substances.]
In 'On the Artificial Formation of Urea'. In J.C. Poggendorff's Annalen der Physik und Chemie (1828), 88, 253. Alternate translation in 'Über Künstliche Bildung des
Hamstoffs', Annalen der Physik und Chemie (1828), 12, 253, as translated in Quarterly Journal of Science (Apr-Jun 1828), 25, 491. Collected in Henry Marshall Leicester and Herbert S. Klickstein, A Source Book in Chemistry, 1400-1900 (1951), 310.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
