page_title: Felix Hoppe-Seyler
section_title: Contributions
hierarchical_section_title: Felix Hoppe-Seyler / Contributions
caption_attribution_description: English: Title page from Physiologische Chemie / von Felix Hoppe-Seyler. Berlin&#160;: A. Hirschwald, 1877-1881. Felix Hoppe-Seyler, who was both a physiologist and chemist, became the principal founder of biochemistry. His text Physiological Chemistry became the standard text for this new branch of applied chemistry. He was a major influence in introducing physiological chemistry to the medical community.
context_page_description: Ernst Felix Immanuel Hoppe-Seyler was a German physiologist and chemist, and the principal founder of the disciplines of biochemistry and molecular biology.
context_section_description: Felix Hoppe-Seyler, a physiologist and chemist, became the principal founder of biochemistry.  His text  Physiological Chemistry became the standard text for this new branch of applied chemistry.
  His numerous investigations include studies of blood, hemoglobin, pus, bile, milk, and urine. Hoppe-Seyler was the first scientist to describe the optical absorption spectrum of the red blood pigment and its two distinctive absorption bands. He also recognized the binding of oxygen to erythrocytes as a function of hemoglobin, which in turn creates the compound oxyhemoglobin. Hoppe-Seyler was able to obtain hemoglobin in crystalline form, and confirmed that it contained iron.
  He  became an elected member of the French Academy of Sciences, despite the unfavorable political terms between France and Germany at that time, and this helped him gain an international reputation as the keen promoter of science.
  Hoppe-Seyler performed important studies of chlorophyll. He is also credited with the isolation of several different proteins (which he referred to as "proteids"). In addition, he was the first scientist to purify lecithin and establish its composition. In 1877, he founded the Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie (Journal for Physiological Chemistry), and was its editor until his death in 1895. He died in Wasserburg am Bodensee in the Kingdom of Bavaria.
caption: Physiologische Chemie, 1877
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