Antoine Béchamp

Antoine Béchamp

Pierre Jacques Antoine Béchamp (born October 15 or 18, 1816 in Bassing , † April 15, 1908 in Paris ) was a French chemist , physician and pharmacist .

Life

Antoine Béchamp was born the son of a miller . His uncle, the French consul in the Principality of Wallachia , took the seven-year-old with him to Bucharest , where he began an apprenticeship as a pharmacist in 1831. In 1834 he returned because his uncle had died of cholera and enrolled at the Strasbourg pharmacy school ( École supérieure de Pharmacie ). In 1843 he founded a pharmacy in Strasbourg . In 1851 he took over the chemistry, physics and toxicology section of the pharmacy school . During this time a colleague of his was Louis Pasteur , chemistry professor at the University of Strasbourg , to whom he also devoted his doctoral thesis in chemistry from 1853. In 1856 he became professor of clinical chemistry and pharmacy at the University of Montpellier and in the same year submitted his doctoral thesis in medicine. In 1876 he was appointed dean of the Lille Free Medical School ( Faculté libre de médecine de Lille ). This Catholic university dismissed him in 1888 with the charge of having taught " materialism ". Together with his eldest son Joseph (1847-1893), Béchamp then bought a pharmacy in Le Havre . When Joseph died at the age of only 45, Antoine Béchamp moved to Paris , where he was able to work in a small laboratory at the Sorbonne . Here he died at the age of 91. As a Knight of the Legion of Honor , he received a military burial; he is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery.

plant

chemistry

Béchamp's medical doctoral thesis attempt on the albuminoid substances and their conversion to urea caught the attention of Jean-Baptiste Dumas , who presented them at the Academy of Sciences . In it, Béchamp showed that urea can be formed from proteins ("albuminoid substances") through oxidation with potassium permanganate , an achievement that Dumas said he himself had failed several times. This explains the origin of urea in animal metabolism.

1852 Béchamp an inexpensive method developed, aniline by reduction of nitrobenzene with iron filings and acetic acid to produce ( Bechamp reduction ). This method contributed to the rise of the paint industry . In 1863 he synthesized atoxyl by reacting aniline with arsenic acid . Atoxyl was used as a drug for anemia , skin diseases and to a certain extent for the therapy of sleeping sickness .

Béchamp's theory of pleomorphism (diversity)

On the basis of experimental work, from 1857 (see below), Béchamp developed a hypothesis of pleomorphism , which has since been refuted , according to which all animal and plant cells consist of tiny particles that, under certain circumstances, could develop into bacteria. After the cell dies, these particles would have the ability to continue to exist. Béchamp called these small particles "microzymes" ( microzymas or granulations moléculaires ).

Béchamp is convinced that microzymes are able to replicate, have their own metabolism , show signs of fermentation , form tissue and develop into bacteria or mycelia , as are known from fungi . According to Béchamp, microzymes formed the basis of all life. Béchamp accused his research colleagues that they would only make their observations on fixed, sliced ​​and stained - i.e. dead - living beings, while his observations were based on living specimens.

Back then, it was a popular laboratory practice to add chalk to fermenting cultures to neutralize the medium. In 1866, Béchamp reported that this chalk contained extremely small organisms that were even smaller than yeasts. Although Béchamp considered Microzyma cretae - as he called the organisms - to be as old as the chalk itself, it appeared to be still alive. Béchamp found similar organisms in soils . The biochemist Keith L. Manchester speculated whether Béchamp actually saw bacteria .

In 1867 Béchamp published a paper in which he described the carbon cycle between the biosphere and inanimate nature. While his competitor, the vitalist Louis Pasteur , distinguished between an animate and an inanimate chemistry, Béchamp insisted that there was only one chemistry. Such views earned him - a devout Catholic - the accusation of materialism , which was to cost him his job in Lille in 1888.

Béchamp's hypotheses inspired a number of scientists of the 19th and 20th centuries such as the German zoologist Günther Enderlein , Wilhelm Reich ( Bion ), the American Royal Rife and the Russian Tamara Lebedewa . Béchamp's views have now been refuted by modern biology and medicine , but still play a role in some alternative medicine teachings .

Controversy with Pasteur

Louis Pasteur, 1878, photo by Nadar . Béchamp thought Pasteur was a plagiarist of his own work: "I am the forerunner of Pasteur, just as the one who stole is the forerunner of a newly rich, happy and brazen thief who mocks and insults him."

Béchamp is referred to in numerous books, for example in the Dictionnaire de biographie française , as the “forerunner” of Pasteur. During their time in Strasbourg, the two still maintained a friendly relationship. They had similar interests: Between 1854 and 1857 - even before Pasteur - Béchamp dealt with fermentation issues .

Hydrolysis of cane sugar as a result of the activity of living things

For the first time, Béchamp and Pasteur came into conflict over the interpretation of an experiment on the hydrolysis of cane sugar ( sucrose ) into glucose and fructose ( invert sugar ). This process can be followed by rotating the plane of oscillation of polarized light . Béchamp's first publication on this phenomenon dates from 1855. Here he reported that hydrolysis did not occur when he added 25% calcium or zinc chloride . In a table, Béchamp noted in a footnote that mold had formed in the comparison solution without these salts , but that it did not increase. In this publication, Béchamp does not go into the question of whether the mold played any role in the hydrolysis.

In 1858, Béchamp revised his earlier views and wrote that the hydrolysis was not due to cold water, but the result of "real fermentation". The hydrolysis takes place as mold develops. In 1872 Béchamp claimed priority for the discovery that "organized ferments" ( enzymes that were components of living things) can develop in culture media in the absence of proteinaceous material. Fermentation is essentially a process of nutrition and excretion. Pasteur dealt with Béchamp's claim to priority in 1876 in a footnote in his Etudes sur la bière and suggested that Béchamp had taken these ideas from Pasteur's work on lactic acid fermentation and alcoholic fermentation from 1857. In his work Les microzymas, Béchamp reacted with an outburst of anger and a reference to a publication from 1857, which in fact does not exist (at that time, the date on which a work had been submitted was not recorded by magazines; this is probably the publication from 1858 ). The biochemist Keith L. Manchester analyzed this conflict and said that Pasteur and Béchamp independently came to similar conclusions. A plagiarism allegation is not justified.

Diseases of the silkworms

Another controversy arose when Pasteur was commissioned by the government in 1865 to investigate a silkworm disease called pébrine . Antoine Béchamp had already been active in this field and in 1866, in a note to the Academy of Sciences, described pébrine as an infectious disease. At that time, Pasteur compared the brown spots that formed with this disease with cancer cells or lung tubercles (the character of tuberculosis as an infectious disease was still unknown at the time). Even in 1867 Pasteur rejected the hypothesis of an infectious disease for the pébrine . In the same year, Béchamp claimed its priority in a letter to the Academy of Sciences. Pasteur didn't mention Béchamp in his large monograph “Studies on the Diseases of Silkworms” from 1870, although he otherwise lectured on the work of his predecessors. Pasteur separated from the pébrine a second, independent disease, the flattening , which he also described as an infectious disease. But here, too, Béchamp had already identified a microbe that he named Microzymas aglaiae . Presumably at that time both researchers saw a bacterial secondary infection with Bacillus bombycis as a result of the viral disease flattening .

A strange reversal of positions can be observed with the diseases of the silkworms: While Pasteur had previously proven during fermentation that the pathogen came from the air, he initially wrongly assumed with the pébrine that the disease process originated from inside the caterpillar. Béchamp, however, believed - correctly - that the pathogen came from outside. This contradicted the Microzyma theory, which he advocated, according to which components of body cells - the so-called microzymas - are converted into pathogens such as bacteria in the event of a disease within the body . Pasteur strictly rejected Béchamp's pleomorphism and for his part propagated monomorphism , according to which the shape and function of every organism are determined by its type .

bibliography

Works by Antoine Béchamp (selection):

• Research on the pyroxyline . (premier mémoire). In: Journal de pharmacie et de chimie . 3rd Series, Volume 22, 1853, pp. 440-448. (deuxième mémoire). In: Annales de chimie et de physique . 3rd Series, Volume 46, 1856, pp. 338-360. (Doctoral thesis in chemistry for the docteur-ès-sciences )
• De l'action chimique de la lumière . G. Silbermann, Strasbourg 1853. (Doctoral thesis in physics, Strasbourg August 19, 1853)
• Essai sur les substances albuminoïdes et sur leur transformation en urée . G. Silbermann, Strasbourg 1856. (doctoral thesis in medicine)
• Conseils aux sériciculteurs sur l'emploi de la créosote dans l'éducation des vers à soie . Coulet, Montpellier 1867.
• De la circulation du carbone dans la nature et des intermédiaires de cette circulation . Asselin, Paris 1867.
• The microzymas dans leur reports avec l'hétérogénie, l'histogénie, la physiologie et la pathologie. Examen de la panspermie atmosphere continue ou discontinue, morbifère ou non morbifère . Baillière, Paris 1883. (New edition by the Center International de Recherches Antoine Béchamp (1990))

A complete bibliography - albeit with numerous printing errors - is provided by Marie Nonclercq: Antoine Béchamp 1816–1908. L'Homme et le savant, originalité et fécondité de son œuvre . Maloine, Paris 1982, ISBN 2-224-00854-6 , pp. 189-198.

Works about Antoine Béchamp:

• Antonio Cadeddu: Les vérités de la science. Pratique, récit, histoire: le cas Pasteur . Leo S. Olschki, Florenz 2005, pp. 27-55. (on the conflict with Pasteur over the diseases of the silkworms)
• Keith L. Manchester: Antoine Béchamp: père de la biologie. Oui ou non? In: Endeavor . Volume 25, No. 2, 2001, pp. 68-73. (on the conflict with Pasteur about the hydrolysis of cane sugar and the microzyme hypothesis)
• Marie Nonclercq: Antoine Béchamp 1816–1908. L'Homme et le savant, originalité et fécondité de son œuvre . Maloine, Paris 1982, ISBN 2-224-00854-6 . (very partial representation of Béchamp's life)
• E. Douglas Hume: Béchamp or Pasteur? A lost chapter in the history of biology . Covici-McGee, Chicago 1923. (a pamphlet against Pasteur)

Web links

• Website of the Center International de Recherches Antoine Béchamp (in French)
• Article by / about Antoine Béchamp in the Polytechnic Journal

Individual evidence

1. ^ A. Béchamp: Essai sur les substances albuminoïdes et sur leur transformation en urée . G. Silbermann, Strasbourg 1856.
2. ↑ Dumas in: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 43, 1856, pp. 548-550.
3. ^ Antoine Béchamp: De l'action des protosels de fer sur la nitronaphtaline et la nitrobenzine. Nouvelle method de formation des bases organiques artificielles de Zinin. In: Annales de chimie et de physique. 4, 1854, pp. 186-196 ( digitized on Gallica ).
4. ^ A. Béchamp: De l'action de la chaleur sur l'arséniate d'aniline et la formation d'une anilide de l'acide arsénique . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 56, 1863, pp. 1172-1175.
5. ↑ A. Béchamp: Du rôle de la craie dans les fermentations butyrique et lactique, et des organismes actuellement vivants qu'elle contient . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 63, 1866, pp. 451-455.
6. ^ Keith L. Manchester: Antoine Béchamp: père de la biologie. Oui ou non? In: Endeavor . Volume 25, No. 2, 2001, pp. 68-73, here p. 71.
7. ↑ A. Béchamp: De la circulation du carbone dans la nature et des intermédiaires de cette circulation . Asselin, Paris 1867.
8. ↑ Marie Nonclercq: Antoine Béchamp 1816-1908. L'Homme et le savant, originalité et fécondité de son œuvre . Maloine, Paris 1982, p. 43: "Je suis le précurseur de Pasteur exactement comme le volé est le précurseur de la fortune du voleur enrichi, heureux et insolent qui le nargue et le calomnie."
9. ↑ Michel Prévost and Roman d'Amat (eds.): Dictionnaire de biographie française . Letouzey et Ané, Paris 1951. Quoted from: Nonclercq: Antoine Béchamp …, p. 43.
10. ↑ A. Béchamp: Note on l'influence que l'eau pure et certaines dissolutions salines exercent sur le sucre de canne . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 40, 1855, pp. 436-438.
11. ↑ A. Béchamp: Note on l'influence que l'eau pure et certaines dissolutions salines exercent sur le sucre de canne . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 40, 1855, pp. 436-438, here p. 437.
12. ^ A. Béchamp: De l'influence que l'eau pure ou chargée de divers sels exerce à froid sur le sucre de canne . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 46, 1858, pp. 44-47.
13. ↑ A. Béchamp: Seconde observation sur quelques communications récentes de M. Pasteur, notamment sur la theory de la fermentation alcoolique . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 75, 1872, pp. 1519-1523.
14. ↑ Pasteur Vallery-Radot (ed.): Œuvres de Pasteur . Volume 5: Etudes sur la bière . Masson, Paris 1928, p. 252, footnote. Originally published / published as Louis Pasteur: Etudes sur la bière . Gauthier-Villars, Paris 1876.
15. ↑ Louis Pasteur: Mémoire sur la fermentation appelée lactique . In: Pasteur Vallery-Radot (ed.): Œuvres de Pasteur . Volume 2: Fermentations et générations dites spontanées . Masson, Paris 1922, pp. 3-13. Originally published / published in Annales de chimie et de physique . Row 3, Volume 52, 1858, pp. 404-418.
16. ^ Louis Pasteur: Mémoire sur la fermentation alcoolique . In: Pasteur Vallery-Radot (ed.): Œuvres de Pasteur . Volume 2: Fermentations et générations dites spontanées . Masson, Paris 1922, pp. 18-22. Originally published / published in Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 45, 1857, pp. 1032-1036.
17. ↑ A. Béchamp: Les microzymas dans leur rapports avec l'hétérogénie, l'histogénie, la physiologie et la pathologie. Examen de la panspermie atmosphere continue ou discontinue, morbifère ou non morbifère . Baillière, Paris 1883.
18. ^ Keith L. Manchester: Antoine Béchamp: père de la biologie. Oui ou non? In: Endeavor . Volume 25, No. 2, 2001, pp. 68-73. here p. 72.
19. ↑ A. Béchamp: Sur l'innocuité des vapeurs de créosote dans les éducations de vers à soie . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 62, 1866, pp. 1341f. The article begins with the words: “J'admets que la maladie des vers à soie, qui fait tant des ravages depuis plusieurs années est parasitaire. La pébrine , selon moi, attaque d'abord le ver par le dehors, et c'est de l'air que viennent les germes du parasite. La maladie, en un mot, n'est pas primitivement constitutionnelle. "
20. ^ Louis Pasteur: Observations sur la maladie des vers à soie . In: Pasteur Vallery-Radot (ed.): Œuvres de Pasteur . Volume 4: Études sur la maladie des vers à soie . Masson, Paris 1926, pp. 427–431, here p. 431: “Cependant je me hasarde à dire que mon opinion présente est que les corpuscules ne sont ni des animaux, ni des végétaux, mais des corps plus ou moins analogues aux granulations des cellules cancéreuses ou des tubercules pulmonaires. Au point de vue d'une classification méthodique, ils devraient être rangés plutôt à côté des globules de pus, ou des globules du sang, ou mieux encore des granules d'amidon, qu'auprès des infusoires ou des moisissures. ”Originally published in Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 61, 1865, pp. 506-512, here p. 511.
21. ^ Louis Pasteur: Nouvelle note sur la maladie des vers à soie . In: Pasteur Vallery-Radot (ed.): Œuvres de Pasteur . Volume 4: Études sur la maladie des vers à soie . Masson, Paris 1926, pp. 454–468, here p. 465.
22. ^ A. Béchamp: Lettre adressée à M. le Président, au sujet de la communication fait par M. Pasteur on April 29th dernier . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences . Volume 64, 1867, pp. 1042f.
23. ↑ Pasteur Vallery-Radot (ed.): Œuvres de Pasteur . Volume 4: Études sur la maladie des vers à soie . Masson, Paris 1926, pp. 1–284, here pp. 54–186.
24. ↑ A. Béchamp: Conseils aux sériciculteurs sur l'emploi de la créosote dans l'éducation des vers à soie . Coulet, Montpellier 1867.
25. ↑ Ilse Jahn (Ed.): History of Biology . 3rd, revised edition. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg and Berlin 2002, p. 625.
26. ↑ A. Béchamp: Les microzymas dans leur rapports avec l'hétérogénie, l'histogénie, la physiologie et la pathologie. Examen de la panspermie atmosphere continue ou discontinue, morbifère ou non morbifère . Baillière, Paris 1883.