The author wishes to express his gratitude for the kind help and advice of Ms Judit Brody, Dr Ernst Homburg (Katholieke Universiteit, Nijmegen), Professor O. B. Jørgensen (Copenhagen Polytechnic), Mrs Nechama Shalom (Weizmann Archives), Mr W. Siebel (J. E. Siebel Sons Inc.) and the referees of this article. The work was done with the support of the Science Museum.

¹ See, for example, ACARD/ABRC/The Royal Society, Biotechnology: Report of a Joint Working Party, London, 1980Google Scholar; or Rehm, Hans-Jürgen, ‘Entwicklungen in der Biotechnologie’, Chemische Industrie (1975), 27, 373–6.Google Scholar

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³ Most recently Dr Teich has published ‘The industrialisation of brewing in Germany’, in Production, Marketing and Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages since the Late Middle Ages (ed. Aerts, E., Cullen, L. M. and Wilson, R. G.) Leuven, 1990.Google Scholar

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⁶ Schrohe, A., Aus der Vergangenheit der Gärungstechnik und verwandter Gebiete, Berlin, 1917.Google Scholar

⁷ 100 Jahre Institut für Gärungsgewerbe und Biotechnologie zu Berlin 1874–1974, op. cit. (4).

⁸ For a good treatment of the Stahlians see Engel, Michael, Chemie im achtzehnten Jahrhundert. Auf dem Weg zu einer internationalen Wissenschaft. Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734) zum 250 TodestagGoogle Scholar, Exhibition in the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz 29 May to 7 July 1984. The classic work on Stahl's chemistry is still Hélène Metzger's Newton, Stahl, Boerhaave et la doctrine chimique, Paris, 1930.

⁹ Dictionnaire alphabetique et analogique de la langue Française (1962), 46, 1077Google Scholar: entry ‘Zymotechnie, n.f. (1762 Acad;…peu usite “Technique des fermentations (déclenchement, arrét, accélération)”’.

¹⁰ For Neumann as protégé of Stahl see Hufbauer, Cari, The formation of the German Chemical Community (1720–1795), Berkeley, 1982, 10–11Google Scholar, etc. See also Schrohe, , op. cit. (6), 105–19 and 164–5.Google Scholar

¹¹ For the development of brewing technology in Bohemia I am indebted to Soňa trbáňová, ‘On the beginnings of biochemistry in Bohemia’, Acta Historiae rerum naturalium necnon technicarum, Special Issue 9, Prague, 1977, 149–221.

¹² Balling, C., Bericht über die Fortschritte der zymotechnische Wissenschaften und Gewerbe, Prague, 1847.Google Scholar

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¹⁴ Pfisterer, Herbert, Der Polytechnische Verein und sein Wirken im vorindustriellen Bayern (1815–1830), Miscellanea Bavarica Monacensia 45, Munich, 1973.Google Scholar For an understanding of the importance of Prechtl I am indebted to Ernst Homburg.

¹⁵ In general my treatment of the German agricultural colleges and stations follows the recent extensive analysis of Ursula Schling-Brodersen, Entwicklung und Institutionalisierung der Agriculturchemie im 19. Jahrhundert: und die Landwirtschaftlichen Versuchsstationen, Braunschweiger Veröffentlichungen zur Geschichte der Pharmazie und der Naturwissenschaften, 31, Braunschweig, 1989.

¹⁶ Finlay, Mark R., ‘The German agricultural experiment stations and the beginnings of American agricultural research’, Agricultural History (1988), 62, no. 2, 41–50;Google Scholar

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¹⁸ Lintner, Carl, ‘C. J. H. Ballings Leben und Wirken’, Bayerische Bierbrauer (1866), 1, 29–35, 47–9, 62–6.Google Scholar Also see his ‘Über einige Resultate zymotechnischer Untersuchungen und ihre Verwerthung für die Praxis der Bierbrauerei’, Bayerische Bierbrauer (1876), 11, 213–23.Google Scholar

¹⁹ On Delbrück and his institute see Hayduck, F., ‘Max Delbrück’, Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft (1920), 53, pt 1, 48A–62A.Google Scholar

²⁰ On Liebig scholarship see Brock, W. H., ‘Liebigiana: old and new perspectives’, Hist. Sci. (1981), 19, 201–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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²² Holter, H. and Møller, K. Max, The Carlsberg Laboratory 1876/1976, Copenhagen, 1976.Google Scholar

²³ ibid., p. 16.

²⁴ This famous quotation is cited in Dubos, René, Louis Pasteur, Freelance of Science, New York, 1976, 67–8.Google Scholar

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²⁹ Hansen, Emil Christian, Practical Studies in Fermentations (tr. Miller, Alex K.), London, 1896, 272.Google Scholar

³⁰ For Jørgensen see his obituary by Blom-Björner, J., Journal of the Institute of Brewing (1926), 32, 198.Google Scholar The international scope of his teaching is indicated by an English-language advertising brochure published in 1897: ‘Alfred Jørgensen's Laboratory of Physiology and Technology of Fermentations at Copenhagen’.

³¹ ‘Ansættelser fra Laboratoriet i sidste Semesier’, Zymotechnisk Tidsskrift (1907), 23, no. 11, 90.Google Scholar

³² Arnold, John P. and Penman, Frank, History of the Brewing Industry and Brewing Science in America. Prepared as a Memorial to the Pioneers of American Brewing Science Dr John E. Siebel and Anton Schwartz, Chicago, 1933, 15–22.Google Scholar

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³⁵ See Vernon, Keith, ‘Pus, sewage, beer and milk: microbiology in Britain, 1870–1940’, Hist. Sci. (1990), 28, 289–325CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Paul Weindling, ‘Scientific elites and laboratory organizations in fin de siècle Paris and Berlin: the Institut Pasteur and Robert Koch's Institut für Infektionskrankheiten compared’ (forthcoming). I am grateful to Dr Weindling for showing me a draft of this paper.

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³⁸ Benninga, H., A History of Lactic Acid Making. A Chapter in the History of Biotechnology, Dordrecht, 1990Google Scholar; also see May, O. E. and Herrick, H. T., ‘Some minor industrial fermentations’, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (11 1930), 22, no. 11, 1172–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁹ See Reinharz, Jehuda, Chaim Weizmann, The Making of a Zionist Leader, Oxford, 1985.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Perkin, W. H. Jr, ‘The production and polymerisation of butadiene, isoprene and their homologues’, Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry (1912), 31, 616–25Google Scholar, especially 620. In a letter to Fernbach, 8 May 1912 (p. 254, Court Collection, Weizmann Archives, Rehovot, Israel) Strange explained that he was writing this paper.

⁴¹ Quoted in Reinharz, , op. cit. (39), 302.Google Scholar

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⁴³ I am grateful to Professor Jehuda Reinharz, the biographer of Weizmann, for the opportunity to discuss the hypothesis. Bergmann gives an example of a similar rclationship between Weizmann's Zionist dreams and the needs of Britain before the Second World War. Then he was looking for a conversion process for Palestinian shale. The so-called ‘catarole’ cracking process that Weizmann developed was first implemented at the Partington Oil Refinery, now Shell's Carrington Plant, near Manchester, where it was to be the basis of the first British petrochemical complex. Ernst David Bergmann, ‘Dr Weizmann's scientific work in the framework of the industrial and political development of his time’, Weizmann Archives.

⁴⁴ Gejl, Ib, ‘Gustav Hagemann’, Dansk Biografisk Lexicon, 5, 472–6.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Aarbog for Københavns Universitet, Kommunitet og den polytekniske Læranstalt, indeholdende Meddelelser for det akademiske Aar 1907–1908, udgivet efter Konsitoriums Foranstaltning af H. Munch-Petersen (Copenhagen: Universitetebogytrykkeriat, 1912), ‘Oprettelse af en fast Lærerstilling i Gæringsysiologi og landbotanisk Kemi’, p. 367. I am grateful to Professor O. B. Jørgensen of the Danish Technical University for pointing out this passage to me.

⁴⁶ Orla-Jensen, S., Lidt anvendt Filosofi, Copenhagen, 1934, 6.Google Scholar

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⁴⁹ On the Chicago Bureau see Arnold, John P. and Penman, Frank, op. cit. (32)Google Scholar, though they are incorrect in implying that the Bureau of Biotechnology was founded in 1917. There was no reference to the Bureau of Biotechnology in the article on Siebel, ‘E. A. Siebel Co.’, op. cit. (48). The Chicago Bureau was only one of several similar enterprises under one roof promoted by E. A. Siebel, and was seemingly the least important. It had no entry in the 1930s Chicago telephone directory and kept a low profile in publicity, for instance ‘Achievement. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow’, E. A. Siebel and Company and Siebel Laboratories, Inc. [nd.] (though it was mentioned there). I am grateful to Mr W. Siebel of J. E. Siebel's Sons, Inc. for assistance in tracing his uncle's firm.

⁵⁰ ‘Achievement. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow’, E. A.Siebel and Company and Siebel Laboratories, Inc. [nd.].

⁵¹ A leading member of the close communiry of Chicago brewing scientists was the Danish born Dr Max Henius, of the Wahl–Henius Institute. He paid visits to Denmark in both 1914 and 1919 as well as keeping in close touch by letter. See (n.a.) Max Henius. A Biography, Chicago, 1937.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ On Hungarian agriculture see: Gaal, L. and Gunst, P., Animal Husbandry in Hungary in the 19th–20th Centuries, Budapest, 1977Google Scholar, and Voros, Antal, ‘The age of preparation: Hungarian agrarian conditions between 1848–1914’, in The Modernization of Agriculture: Rural Transformation in Hungary, 1848–1975 (ed. Held, Joseph) Boulder, Colorado, 1975.Google Scholar

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⁵⁸ On Brinkmann, see Nou, Joseph, Studies in the Development of Agricultural Economies in Europe, Uppsala, 1967.Google Scholar Brinkmann also studied Danish agriculture in detail, reporting in his well-known Die dänische Landuirtschaft. Die Entwicklung ihrer Produktion seit dem Auftreten der internationalalen Konkurrenz und ihre Anpassung an den Weltmarkt vermittels genossenschaftlicher Organisation, Jena, 1908.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Pringsheim, H., review of Ereky, Karl, Biotechnologie (op. cit. 53)Google Scholar, Die Naturwissenschaften (1919), 7, 112.Google Scholar

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⁶¹ Meyers Lexikon, 7th edn of 1925, ii, 403Google Scholar; Grosse Brockhaus, 15th edn, ii, 747.Google Scholar

⁶² See Delbrück, op. cit. (27).