In photosynthesis, oxygen comes from water: from a 1787 book for women by Monsieur De Fourcroy.
It is now well established that the source of oxygen in photosynthesis is water. The earliest suggestion previously known to us had come from René Bernard Wurmser (1930). Here, we highlight an earlier report by Monsieur De Fourcroy (1787), who had already discussed the broad outlines of such a hypothesis in a book on Chemistry written for women. We present here a free translation of a passage from this book, with the original text in French as an Appendix.
Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique, 13 Rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 75005, Paris, France.
Pierre
P
Joliot
Department of Biochemistry and Center of Biophysics and Quantitative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, 61801, USA.
Antony R
AR
Crofts
Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Lund University, 22100, Lund, Sweden.
Lars Olof
LO
Björn
School of Chemical Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA.
Christine T
CT
Yerkes
Department of Plant Biology, Department of Biochemistry and Center of Biohysics & Quantitative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, 61801, USA. gov@illinois.edu.
Govindjee
D002621:Chemistry / Q000266:history*; D005602:France; D049671:History, 18th Century; D010788:Photosynthesis
Antoine Lavoisier; Joseph Priestley; Otto Warburg; René Wurmser; Richard Willstätter