Editing Vitalism (section)

===19th century===
{{further|Alternatives to Darwinism}}
[[File:Sample of Urea.jpg|thumb|right|The synthesis of [[urea]] in the early 19th century from [[inorganic chemistry|inorganic compounds]] was [[counterevidence]] for the vitalist hypothesis that only organisms could make the components of living things.]]

[[Jöns Jakob Berzelius]], one of the early 19th century founders of modern [[chemistry]], argued that a regulative force must exist within living matter to maintain its functions.<ref name=Ede>Ede, Andrew. (2007) ''The Rise and Decline of Colloid Science in North America, 1900–1935: The Neglected Dimension'', p. 23</ref> Berzelius contended that compounds could be distinguished by whether they required any organisms in their [[Biosynthesis|synthesis]] ([[organic compounds]]) or whether they did not ([[inorganic compounds]]).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wilkinson|first=Ian|date=10 June 2002|title=History of Clinical Chemistry|journal=EJIFCC|volume=13|issue=4|pages=114–118|issn=1650-3414|pmc=6208063}}</ref> Vitalist chemists predicted that organic materials could not be synthesized from inorganic components, but [[Friedrich Wöhler]] synthesised [[urea]] from inorganic components in 1828.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/13463|title=Vitalism and Synthesis of Urea|first1=E.|last1=Kinne-Saffran|first2=R. K. H.|last2=Kinne|date=August 7, 1999|journal=American Journal of Nephrology|volume=19|issue=2|pages=290–294|via=www.karger.com|doi=10.1159/000013463|pmid=10213830|s2cid=71727190}}</ref> However, contemporary accounts do not support the common belief that vitalism died when Wöhler made urea. This ''Wöhler Myth'', as historian Peter Ramberg called it, originated from a popular history of chemistry published in 1931, which, "ignoring all pretense of historical accuracy, turned Wöhler into a crusader who made attempt after attempt to synthesize a natural product that would refute vitalism and lift the veil of ignorance, until 'one afternoon the miracle happened{{'"}}.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1179/amb.2000.47.3.170|pmid=11640223|title=The Death of Vitalism and the Birth of Organic Chemistry: Wohler's Urea Synthesis and the Disciplinary Identity of Organic Chemistry.|journal=Ambix|volume=47|issue=3|pages=170–195|year=2000|last1=Ramberg|first1=Peter J.|s2cid=44613876}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Schummer |first1=Joachim |title=The notion of nature in chemistry |journal=Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A |date=December 2003 |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=705–736 |doi=10.1016/S0039-3681(03)00050-5|bibcode=2003SHPSA..34..705S |url=http://www.joachimschummer.net/papers/2003_NatureChemistry_SHPS.pdf}}</ref>{{efn|In 1845, [[Adolph Kolbe]] succeeded in making acetic acid from inorganic compounds, and in the 1850s, [[Marcellin Berthelot]] repeated this feat for numerous organic compounds. In retrospect, Wöhler's work was the beginning of the end of Berzelius's vitalist hypothesis, but only in retrospect, as Ramberg had shown.}}

Between 1833 and 1844, [[Johannes Peter Müller]] wrote a book on [[physiology]] called ''Handbuch der Physiologie'', which became the leading textbook in the field for much of the nineteenth century. The book showed Müller's commitments to vitalism; he questioned why organic matter differs from inorganic, then proceeded to chemical analyses of the blood and lymph. He describes in detail the circulatory, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, endocrine, nervous, and sensory systems in a wide variety of animals but explains that the presence of a [[soul]] makes each organism an indivisible whole. He claimed that the behaviour of light and sound waves showed that living organisms possessed a life-energy for which physical laws could never fully account.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Otis |first1=Laura |title=Johannes Peter Müller (1801-1858) |url=https://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/pdfgen/essays/enc22.pdf |website=Virtual Laboratory: Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life (Max Planck Institute) |date=October 2004}}</ref>

[[Louis Pasteur]] (1822–1895) after his famous rebuttal of [[spontaneous generation]], performed several experiments that he felt supported vitalism. According to Bechtel, Pasteur "fitted fermentation into a more general programme describing special reactions that only occur in living organisms. These are irreducibly vital phenomena." Rejecting the claims of Berzelius, [[Liebig]], [[Moritz Traube|Traube]] and others that fermentation resulted from chemical agents or catalysts within cells, Pasteur concluded that fermentation was a "vital action".<ref name=Bechtel/>