Light was at once thrown on many facts in organic chemistry. The analogies between alcohol and water, some of which were first pointed out by Graham (see p. 235), seemed to follow as a necessary consequence when the molecule of alcohol was regarded as built on the water type. In place of two atoms of hydrogen combined with one of oxygen, there was in the alcohol molecule one atom of the compound radicle ethyl (itself composed of carbon and hydrogen), one atom of oxygen and one of hydrogen. Alcohol was water with one hydrogen atom substituted by one ethyl atom; the hydrogen atom was the atom of what we call an element, the ethyl was the atom of what we call a compound radicle.
Gerhardt sought to refer all organic compounds to one or other of three types—the water type, the hydrochloric acid type, and the ammonia type. As new compounds were prepared and examined, other types had to be introduced. To follow the history of this conception would lead us into too many details; suffice it to say that the theory of types was gradually merged in the wider theory of equivalency, about which I shall have a little to say in the next chapter.
One result of the introduction of types into chemical science, associated as it was with the unitary view of compound radicles, was to overthrow that definition of organic chemistry which had for some time prevailed, and which stated that organic chemistry is "the chemistry of compound radicles." Compound radicles, it is true, were more used in explaining the composition and properties of substances obtained from animals and vegetables than of mineral substances, but a definition of one branch of a science which practically included the other branch, from which the first was to be defined, could not be retained. Chemists became gradually convinced that a definition of organic chemistry was not required; that there was no distinction between so-called organic and inorganic compounds; and they have consented, but I scarcely think will much longer consent, to retain the terms "organic" and "inorganic," only because these terms have been so long in use. The known compounds of the element carbon are so numerous, and they have been so much studied and so well classified, that it has become more convenient for the student of chemistry to consider them as a group, to a great extent apart from the compounds of the other elements; to this group he still often gives the name of "organic compounds."
Liebig continued to hold the chair of Chemistry in the University of Giessen until the year 1852, when he was induced by the King of Bavaria to accept the professorship of the same science in the University of Munich. During the second quarter of this century Giessen was much resorted to by students of chemistry from all parts of the world, more especially from England. Many men who afterwards made their mark in chemical discovery worked under the guidance of the professor of Stockholm, but Giessen has the honour of being the place where a well-appointed chemical laboratory for scientific research was first started as a distinctly educational institution. The fame of Liebig as a discoverer and as a teacher soon filled the new institution with students, who were stirred to enthusiasm as they listened to his lectures, or saw him at work in his laboratory. "Liebig was not exactly what is called a fluent speaker," says Professor Hofmann, of Berlin, "but there was an earnestness, an enthusiasm in all he said, which irresistibly carried away the hearer. Nor was it so much the actual knowledge he imparted which produced this effect, as the wonderful manner in which he called forth the reflective powers of even the least gifted of his pupils. And what a boon was it, after having been stifled by an oppressive load of facts, to drink the pure breath of science such as it flowed from Liebig's lips! what a delight, after having perhaps received from others a sack full of dry leaves, suddenly in Liebig's lectures to see the living, growing tree!... We felt then, we feel still, and never while we live shall we forget, Liebig's marvellous influence over us; and if anything could be more astonishing than the amount of work he did with his own hands, it was probably the mountain of chemical toil which he got us to go through. Each word of his carried instruction, every intonation of his voice bespoke regard; his approval was a mark of honour, and of whatever else we might be proud, our greatest pride of all was having him for our master.... Of our young winnings in the noble playground of philosophical honour, more than half were free gifts to us from Liebig, and to his generous nature no triumphs of his own brought more sincere delight than that which he took in seeing his pupils' success, and in assisting, while he watched, their upward struggle."
Liebig had many friends in England. He frequently visited this country, and was present at several meetings of the British Association. At the meeting of 1837 he was asked to draw up a report on the progress of organic chemistry; he complied, and in 1840 presented the world with a book which marks a distinct epoch in the applications of science to industrial pursuits—"Chemistry in its Applications to Agriculture and Physiology."
In this book, and in his subsequent researches and works,[14] Liebig established and enforced the necessity which exists for returning to the soil the nourishing materials which are taken from it by the growth of crops; he suggested that manure rich in the salts which are needed by plants might be artificially manufactured, and by doing this he laid the foundation of a vast industry which has arisen during the last two decades. He strongly and successfully attacked the conception which prevailed among most students of physiology at that time, that chemical and physical generalizations could not be applied to explain the phenomena presented by the growth of living organisms. He was among the first to establish, as an induction from the results of many and varied experiments, the canon which has since guided all teachers of the science of life, that a true knowledge of biology must be based on a knowledge of chemistry and physics.
But Liebig was not content to establish broad generalizations and to leave the working out of them to others; he descended from the heights of philosophical inquiry, and taught the housewife to make soup wherein the greatest amount of nourishment was conveyed to the invalid in the most easily digestible form; and has he not, by bringing within the reach of every one a portion of the animal nourishment which else had run to waste in the pampas of South America or the sheep-runs of Australia, made his name, in every English home, familiar as a household word?
On the death of Berzelius in 1848, it was to Liebig that every chemist looked for a continuation of the annual Report on the progress of chemistry, which had now become the central magazine of facts, whither each worker in the science could resort to make himself acquainted with what had been done by others on any subject which he proposed to investigate. From that time to the present day Liebig's Annalen has been the leading chemical journal of the world.
Of the other literary work of Liebig—of his essays, his celebrated "Chemical Letters," his many reports, his severe and sometimes harsh criticisms of the work of others—of the details of the three hundred original papers wherein he embodied the results of his researches, I have not time, nor would this be the place, to speak.