Gerardus Johannes Mulder

Gerardus Johannes Mulder (27 December 1802 – 18 April 1880) was a Dutch organic and analytical chemist.

Gerardus Johannes Mulder.

Life

Mulder was born in Utrecht and earned a medical degree from Utrecht University.

He became a professor of chemistry at Rotterdam and later at Utrecht.

Protein

Following a suggestion by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Mulder used the term protein in his 1838 paper, "On the composition of some animal substances" (originally in French but translated in 1839 to German). In the same publication, he also proposed that animals draw most of their protein from plants.[1][2][3]

Mulder "was the first to propose a theory concerning the causes of the differences between albumin, casein, and fibrin, and other substances more or less similar to them in physical properties and in their chemical behavior when exposed to reagents. Analyses of these substances showed that their percentage contribution with respect to carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen were so similar as to suggest that they contain one common radical."[4] This radical, a macromolecule, had formula and was known as protein. The variations in albuminous substances were attributed to peripheral bonds of protein to sulfur and/or phosphorus. Justus Liebig and his students sought to determine the structure of proteins, but until the methods of Emil Fischer and Franz Hofmeister became available, the amino acid decompositions were unknown.[5]

Augustus Voelcker was Mulder's assistant for a year from 1846.[6]

In 1850, Mulder was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He died in Bennekom.

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References
  1. Bulletin des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles en Néerlande (1838). pg 104. SUR LA COMPOSITION DE QUELQUES SUBSTANCES ANIMALES
  2. Hartley, Harold (1951). "Origin of the Word 'Protein.'". Nature. 168 (4267): 244. Bibcode:1951Natur.168..244H. doi:10.1038/168244a0.
  3. "Ueber die Zusammensetzung einiger thierischen Substanzen". Journal für Praktische Chemie (in German). 16: 129–152. 1839. doi:10.1002/prac.18390160137.
  4. Elmer McCollum (1957) A History of Nutrition, chapter 4: Knowledge of Albuminous Substances, page 48 "The studies of Mulder on albuminous substances", Houghton-Mifflin
  5. Hubert Bradford Vickery (1942) "Liebig and the Proteins", Journal of Chemical Education doi:10.1021/ed019p73
  6. John Christopher Augustus Voelcker, (1899) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  • Ihde, Aaron (1964) The Development of Modern Chemistry, Harper and Row, pages 359 and 423–424.


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