Theodore Nicolas Gobley - Discoverer of Lecithin and Phospholipids

Discoverer of Lecithin and Phospholipids

In the course of the first half of the 19th century, several French chemists had initiated some tries at the chemical components of brain tissues, but tools and methods for analysis were poor and results fairly unsatisfactory; however they had consistently obtained through different methods, mostly through dissolution in warm alcohol of brain matter, a lipidic substance of more of less stable composition which they had diversely called "matière blanche" (Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin), "cérébrote" (J. P. Couërbe), acide cérébrique (Edmond Frémy).

Obviously, the brain tissues were not solely composed of that, and confusion was high as to their actual composition, with especially Edmond Fremy holding, based on his work on "acide cerebrique", for a blend of neutral lipids such as olein and phosphoric acid.

Gobley found a masterly solution to this question in a series of careful incremental steps. Building on a succession of biological tissue models : egg yolk (1846–1847), carp fish eggs (1850), carp fish roe (1850), brain matter of sundry higher class vertebrae such as chicken, and ultimately man, fat matters in human fluids: blood (1852), bile (1856), Theodore Gobley, in a series of works assiduously pursued over a span of more than 30 years, classified the several fat matters from a variety of biological tissues, characterized their several properties, identified their respective structure, established bridges between wide apart categories (seminal matter, brain) and branches of zoology (birds, fish, mammals), shed light on similarities of tissues build-up and specified their differences depending on their function (1874).