The significance of Warburg’s work for the transformation of concepts in the investigation of vitamins is stressed, and the different investigative approaches of the competing groups are made clear. The grounds for the controversy carried out in their scientific publications, between Paul Karrer and Warburg on the one side, and Richard Kuhn on the other side, are fully examined, using the example of vitamin B2. A second level of discussion that remained hidden from behind the public scientific debate is analysed: (...) the prioriy dispute between the savants was connected with the interests of the chemical industry. (shrink)

In his book "Organic Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Chemistry." Justus Liebig attacked "the plant physiologists" for their support of the humus theory and for their general ignorance of chemistry. Two leading botanists, Matthias Schleiden and Hugo von Mohl, responded by sharply criticizing Liebig for his lack of knowledge of plants and his misrepresentation of the views of plant physiologists. The origin and character of this debate can be understood in part through the temperaments of Liebig and Schleiden, (...) but can be viewed also as a contest for control between the well-established discipline of chemistry and a potential discipline of plant physiology that had as yet acquired no stable institutional foundations. (shrink)