History of biochemistry
The term “biochemistry” itself is derived from the combining form "bio-", meaning "life", and "chemistry". The word is first recorded in English in 1848, while in 1877, Felix Hoppe-Seyler used the term ("Biochemie" in German) in the foreword to the first issue of "Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie" (Journal of Physiological Chemistry) as a synonym for physiological chemistry and argued for the setting up of institutes dedicate to its studies. Nevertheless, several sources cite German chemist Carl Neuberg as having coined the term for the new discipline in 1903, and some credit it to Franz Hofmeister.
History of biochemistry
In the 19th century, when studying the fermentation of sugar to alcohol by yeast, Louis Pasteur concluded that this fermentation was catalyzed by a vital force contained within the yeast cells called "ferments", which he thought functioned only within living organisms. He wrote that "alcoholic fermentation is an act correlated with the life and organization of the yeast cells, not with the death or putrefaction of the cells."