Lactic Acid - History

History

Lactic acid was refined for the first time by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1780 from sour milk. In 1808 Jöns Jacob Berzelius discovered that lactic acid (actually L-lactate) also is produced in muscles during exertion. Its structure was established by Johannes Wislicenus in 1873.

In 1856, Louis Pasteur discovered Lactobacillus and its role in the making of lactic acid. Lactic acid started to be produced commercially by the German pharmacy Boehringer Ingelheim in 1895.

In 2006, global production of lactic acid reached 275,000 tonnes with an average annual growth of 10%.

Read more about this topic:  Lactic Acid

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)

    They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
    Change horses, making history change its tune,
    Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
    Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
    Excepting the post-obits of theology.
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.”
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)