Discovery and Synthesis
Djenkolic acid was first isolated by Van Veen and Hyman from the urine of the natives of Java who had eaten the djenkol bean and were suffering from poisoning. They then succeeded in isolating the djenkolic acid crystals from the djenkol beans treated with Ba(OH)2 at 30°C for a prolonged period of time.
Djenkolic acid was later reported to be found as much as 20 grams in every kilogram of dry djenkol beans, and it has also been reported to be found to a lesser extent in the seeds of other leguminous plants such as Leucaena esculenta (2.2 g/kg) and Pithecolobium ondulatum (2.8 g/kg).
Du Vigneaud and Patterson managed to synthesize djenkolic acid by the condensation of methylene chloride with 2 moles of L-cysteine in liquid ammonia and to show that their synthetic compound was identical with the naturally occurring djenkolic acid. Later on, Armstrong and du Vigneaud prepared djenkolic acid by the direct combination of 1 mole of formaldehyde with 2 moles of L-cysteine in a strongly acid solution.
Read more about this topic: Djenkolic Acid
Famous quotes containing the words discovery and, discovery and/or synthesis:
“The new supplants the old. Yet men’s minds are stuffed with outworn bunk. Educating the young in the latest findings of authorities and scholars in the social sciences is important. It is equally important to devise ways and means for aiding the middle-aged and old to reexamine hang-over unscientific doctrines and ideas in the light of recent discovery and research.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is not easy to construct by mere scientific synthesis a foolproof system which will lead our children in a desired direction and avoid an undesirable one. Obviously, good can come only from a continuing interplay between that which we, as students, are gradually learning and that which we believe in, as people.”
—Erik H. Erikson (20th century)