oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen; but these elements were supposed
to be united in ways that could not be imitated in the domain of
the non-living. It was regarded almost as an axiom of chemistry
that no organic compound whatever could be put together from its
elements--synthesized--in the laboratory. To effect the synthesis
of even the simplest organic compound, it was thought that the
"vital force" must be in operation.

Therefore a veritable sensation was created in the chemical world
when, in the year 1828, it was announced that the young German
chemist, Friedrich Wohler, formerly pupil of Berzelius, and
already known as a coming master, had actually synthesized the
well-known organic product urea in his laboratory at Sacrow. The
"exception which proves the rule" is something never heard of in
the domain of logical science. Natural law knows no exceptions.
So the synthesis of a single organic compound sufficed at a blow
to break down the chemical barrier which the imagination of the
fathers of the science had erected between animate and inanimate
nature. Thenceforth the philosophical chemist would regard the
plant and animal organisms as chemical laboratories in which
conditions are peculiarly favorable for building up complex
compounds of a few familiar elements, under the operation of
universal chemical laws. The chimera "vital force" could no
longer gain recognition in the domain of chemistry.

Now a wave of interest in organic chemistry swept over the
chemical world, and soon the study of carbon compounds became as
much the fashion as electrochemistry had been in the, preceding
generation.