Origins of Organic Chemistry and Organic Synthesis

The words organic and synthesis originate with Aristotle (meaning 'instrumental' and 'put together', respectively) but had different meanings over time. The iatrochemists prepared numerous pharmaceutical remedies in the 1600s but had no concept of organic chemistry. Buffon, Bergman and Gren defined organic bodies as living things in the 1700s, but discrete organic compounds remained unknown. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, organic natural products were isolated by Scheele, and Chevreuil separated carboxylic acids from saponification of fats. Organic chemistry had started. Lavoisier invented and Berzelius improved combustion analysis for organic characterization. Descartes' dictum that synthesis is required to prove an analysis was enacted by Bergman and others. The concept of organic chemistry changed radically when Wohler and Kolbe prepared organic compounds from the elements. Berthelot's syntheses of non-natural fats in 1853 started modern synthetic organic chemistry as the chemistry of carbon compounds, regardless of whether occurring in Nature or not.