A Treatise on Chemistry

Abstract

THE term “Organic Chemistry” was originally used to denote the chemistry of compounds produced in the living vegetable or animal organism, all of which contain the element CARBON. For a long time indeed it was supposed that these compounds were peculiarly the products of living organisms, being formed under the influence of a so-called vital force, and that they could not be produced, like those of the mineral world, by artificial means. But the course of research has shown that this idea was erroneous, and that a large number of the more important organic bodies—hydrocarbons, alcohols, acids, &c., originally known only as products of the living organism—can be formed synthetically from their ultimate elements. The name “Organic Chemistry” has thus acquired a new signification, and in its widest sense is now used to denote the chemistry of carbon-compounds. As however some of these compounds, viz. the oxides and sulphide of carbon, have long been known to be producible by direct combination of their elements, and have accordingly been described in Manuals of Chemistry amongst inorganic compounds, the authors of the present treatise have thought it desirable to use the term “Organic Chemistry” in a somewhat narrower sense, viz. as signifying the CHEMISTRY OF THE HYDROCARBONS AND THEIR DERIVATIVES.

A Treatise on Chemistry.

By H. E. Roscoe C. Schorlemmer, Professors of Chemistry in the Victoria University, Owens College, Manchester. Vol. III. The Chemistry of the Hydrocarbons and their Derivatives, or Organic Chemistry. Part I, 8vo. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881.)