Besides the discovery of phosphorus in elemental form (the fact that phosphorus is a chemical element was understood only a century later after its discovery, when the concept of chemical element has been defined, by Lavoisier together with other French chemists), urine is also connected to what has been considered in 1828 as the first synthesis of an organic compound (urea synthesized by Friedrich Wöhler). Before its first synthesis, urea had always been extracted from urine.
The synthesis of urea from anorganic substances was a great sensation at that time, at least as much as the discovery of phosphorus, because it discredited the belief that the organic substances must be somehow different from the anorganic substances, i.e. they must contain some kind of mysterious "vital force".
Today, urea is no longer considered a true organic substance, because it is too simple, it does not contain carbon-carbon bonds, but it was good that this was not known in 1828, because encouraged by this result many other chemists have soon succeeded to synthesize more complex organic substances from anorganic substances.
jahnu 19 days ago [-]
I wonder if this history was the inspiration for the parts of Neil Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle where the protagonists had to boil vats and vats of urine to make phosphorus?
throwaway5752 19 days ago [-]
I'd expect the inspiration was the actual historical practice of collecting urine for industrial use. The ammonia in urine was used for leather tanning for at least 10,000 years. Urine contains all the elements in the NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) acronym in fertilizers, and was used for agriculture, also.
Urine has dozens of uses historically, including as a detergent, at least since Roman times. Also as a an ingredient for setting dyes, with pregnant women’s urine being especially valued for this. So valued that pregnant women could actually sell their own urine during medieval times.
It’s hard for the modern mind used to modern chemistry to wrap around just how cleverly people used the chemicals available to them.
utrfdew 19 days ago [-]
Also in bill Brysons a complete history of nearly everything he recounts a story of a serial entrepreneur who was trying to come up with an inexpensive way to synthesize penicillin and one of his ideas was putting buckets of urine in his basement.
He found that months later there was a substance that collected on the surface that glowed in the dark.
He purified it and found it had a very low ignition temperature, one so low it was achievable through friction, so he put it on the end of a stick and invented strike anywhere matches.
Others claim that Boyle did not create a usable match
scythe 19 days ago [-]
>He then rubbed the wood across the paper and created a fire. However, there was no useable match created by Robert Boyle.
I found this altogether too brief and immediately ran off to Wikipedia, where I was informed that the Chinese had beaten Boyle to it by centuries:
>Another text, Wu Lin Chiu Shih, dated from 1270 AD, lists sulfur matches as something that was sold in the markets of Hangzhou, around the time of Marco Polo's visit.
But Wikipedia generally confirms that flint and steel remained the primary means of ignition until the nineteenth century. The medieval Chinese matches were just used as a particularly effective tinder.
aredox 19 days ago [-]
People who want to learn chemistry from first principles in a fun way should read Jules Verne 's "Mysterious Island" or, in manga or anime , "Dr Stone". Lots of fun.
The synthesis of urea from anorganic substances was a great sensation at that time, at least as much as the discovery of phosphorus, because it discredited the belief that the organic substances must be somehow different from the anorganic substances, i.e. they must contain some kind of mysterious "vital force".
Today, urea is no longer considered a true organic substance, because it is too simple, it does not contain carbon-carbon bonds, but it was good that this was not known in 1828, because encouraged by this result many other chemists have soon succeeded to synthesize more complex organic substances from anorganic substances.
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/m... is just one of many examples. The practice of collecting urine was less unusual at the time than this article suggests.
It’s hard for the modern mind used to modern chemistry to wrap around just how cleverly people used the chemicals available to them.
He found that months later there was a substance that collected on the surface that glowed in the dark.
He purified it and found it had a very low ignition temperature, one so low it was achievable through friction, so he put it on the end of a stick and invented strike anywhere matches.
Others claim that Boyle did not create a usable match
I found this altogether too brief and immediately ran off to Wikipedia, where I was informed that the Chinese had beaten Boyle to it by centuries:
>Another text, Wu Lin Chiu Shih, dated from 1270 AD, lists sulfur matches as something that was sold in the markets of Hangzhou, around the time of Marco Polo's visit.
But Wikipedia generally confirms that flint and steel remained the primary means of ignition until the nineteenth century. The medieval Chinese matches were just used as a particularly effective tinder.