PASTEUR, LOUIS. - THE PRINCIPLE OF ENANTIOSELECTIVITY ANNOUNCED.

Mémoire sur la fermentation de l'acide tartrique.

(Paris, Gauthier-Villars), 1858. 4to. No wrappers. In: "Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de L'Academie des Sciences", Tome 46, No 13. Pp. (603-) 666. (Entire issue offered). Pasteur's: pp. 615-618. Clean and fine.

First printing of an importent paper in biochemistry announcing the discovery of enantioselectivity. Pasteur's milestone discovery of biological enantioselectivity began the process that in the long run established the fundamental importance of molecular chirality in biology.
"In 1858 he made an importent discovery in connexion with the fermentation of tartaric acid. he observed, if incompletely, the characters of the organisms which causes the fermentation in ammonium tartrate, and transferring a trace of the organism to a solution of racemate of ammonia, which of course is optically inactive, he found that the fermenting solution gradually acquired a left rotatory power until finally the right-handed salt disappeared and laevotartaric acid was left untouched. The organism which achieced this feat was probably a PENICILLIM (1860)." (Bulloch, The History of Bacteriology, p. 60).

Order-nr.: 53132