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In 1828, a Berlin scientist named Friedrich W\u00f6hler had sparked a metaphysical storm in science by boiling ammonium cyanate, a plain, inorganic salt, and creating urea, a chemical typically produced by the kidneys. The W\u00f6hler experiment\u2014seemingly trivial\u2014had enormous implications. Urea was a \u201cnatural\u201d chemical, while its precursor was an inorganic salt. That a chemical produced by natural organisms could be derived so easily in a flask threatened to overturn the entire conception of living organisms: for centuries, the chemistry of living organisms was thought to be imbued with some mystical property, a vital essence that could not be duplicated in a laboratory \u2014a theory called vitalism. W\u00f6hler\u2019s experiment demolished vitalism. Organic and inorganic chemicals, he proved, were interchangeable. Biology was chemistry: perhaps even a human body was no different from a bag of busily reacting chemicals\u2014a beaker with arms, legs, eyes, brain, and soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n