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Science as Receptor of Technology: Paul Ehrlich and the Synthetic Dyestuffs Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Anthony S. Travis
Anthony S. Travis
Affiliation:
Sidney M. Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of ScienceTechnology and MedicineThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Abstract

In Germany during the 1870s and 1880s a number of important scientific innovations in chemistry and biology emerged that were linked to advances in the new technology of synthetic dyestuffs. In particular, the rapid development of classical organic chemistry was a consequence of programs in which chemists devised new theories and experimental strategies that were applicable to the processes and products of the burgeoning dye factories. Thereafter, the novel products became the means to examine and measure biological systems. This took place as a result of two trends. The first was a move toward diversification in the dye industry – made possible by the extensive range of products – which in turn was stimulated by economic and political conditions. The second was the increasing availability of techniques, substances, and processes used in industry. This made possible a concrete program of introducing the qualitative and quantitative methods of chemistry into the domain of laboratory experimentation on biological materials, thereby realizing the abstract desire to transform cell biology into an exact science.

Moreover, the conceptualization of biological systems that emerged from this endeavor leaned heavily on a theory of dye chemistry that indicated which particular arrangements of atoms performed specific functions. This biological modeling used the imagery of chemical structural formulae to transform chemical nuclei and their side chains (substituents) into adequate representations of protoplasmic structure.

Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1989 , pp. 383 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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