Article ID: CBB000930295

Oeconomia animalis: Zur Vorgeschichte des Stoffwechselbegriffs (2007)

unapi

The notion of "metabolism" in the living organism is a central significance for both the biochemistry in the study of synthesis and degradation pathways in the body as well as for the medicine to the pathological investigation of chemical reactions. The term "metabolism" has been only since the beginning of the 19th Century uses. But in ancient Greece and later in the Renaissance philosophers and physicians have attempted to recording and distribution of substances in the living organism to understand. One spoke of the "Oeconomia animalis," the doctrine of "household" of the living body. The Greek philosopher from Alexandria Erasistratos used in the 3rd Century BC scales to substance intake and release of a living bird quantitative way. The observed weight loss, said he "Ausdünstun-gen" of the beast. At the beginning of the 17th Century, the Italian physician Santorio Santorio Erasistratos of the experiment in humans, using a special scales he used, which allowed more accurate measurements. The quantitative determination of the "Perspiratio insensiblis", the "water vapor nichtfühlbaren levy" through the skin providing important information for the "Oeconomia animalis", the "household substance". Such issues were at that time under the influence of the philosophy of René Descar value with great interest. Descartes himself has two books in the physiology of the human being described. His mechanistic approach facilitated the access to the phenomena in the living organism. After his death (1650) appeared in England and the Netherlands physiology books with the title "Oeco-nomia animalis". Wide dissemination were mainly the textbooks of the Englishman Walter Charleton and the Dutchman Cornelius Hogelande. Even Descartes used to describe the human body model of a "machine." The French physician and philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie has in the 18th Century, an extreme mechanistic view of the metabolism represented. His book "L'homme machine" (1748) was banned. Lavoisier finally has the physical and chemical bases of the "animal machine" in expensive and time-consuming experiments to clarify and describe the extent and number. He distinguished three at the same running processes: respiration, Ver-dauung and transpiration, which he as regulators of the living organism be characterized. With the investigation of the "transpiration" he has the early attempts to Santorio "Perspiratio insensibilis" on a scientific footing.

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Authors & Contributors
Monti, Maria Teresa
Trevisani, Francesco
Tombs, George
Thomson, Ann
Sutter, Alex
Stolberg, Michael
Concepts
Biology
Chemistry
Human physiology
Mechanism; mechanical philosophy
Medicine
Metabolism; physiological chemistry
Time Periods
18th century
17th century
Early modern
16th century
19th century
Places
France
Italy
England
Scotland
Europe
Great Britain
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