The topic # 7. Wilhelm (Willi) Friedrich KØhne
(1837-1900). 1876 Wilhelm (Willi) Friedrich KØhne (1837-1900) finds a substance in pancreatic juice that degrades other biological substances (named by KØhne 'trypsin') (øber das Sekret des Pankreas). He subsequently proposes the term 'enzym' (meaning 'in yeast') instead of 'diastase' (Beneden, 1876, see also Gutfreund, 1976) and distinguishes enzymes from the micro-organisms that produce them (KØhne, 1876 a,b). It is worth noting that the words ferment and enzyme are both related to yeast: ferment is an old term for yeast, derived very directly from the agitating nature of a fermenting sugar solution, and enzyme was to denote in yeast, i.e. found in yeast, rather than being an intrinsic, life-bound part of it. By the way, KØhne coined the terms 'rhodopsin' (reference ?) and 'myosin' (KØhne, 1863). Help me please with this problem... |