Title
Outline of the Amino Acids and Proteins (1944)
Author
Edited by Melville Sahyun, M.A., Ph.D.
Vice-President and Director of Research, Frederick Stearns and Company, Detroit, Michigan
Contributing authors: Henry B. Bull, William M. Cahill, Herbert E. Carter, David M. Greenberg, Michael Heidelberger, Irving R. Hooper, Carl L. A. Schmidt, C. F. Kade, Armand J. Quick, Melville Sahyun, Arthur H. Smith, Madelyn Womack, Dean Laurence
Image
Description
Published in 1944 by Reinhold Publishing Corporation (New York), Outline of the Amino Acids and Proteins was a collaborative reference text compiled during World War II. Edited by pharmaceutical chemist Melville Sahyun, the volume brought together leading American biochemists to synthesize current knowledge of amino acid chemistry, protein structure, and metabolism. Chapters cover the occurrence, content, and properties of proteins; the role of amino acids in physiology; and biochemical analysis techniques.
This book reflects both wartime urgency—nutrition and protein science were crucial to military rations and medicine—and the broader mid-20th-century rise of biochemistry as a formal discipline.
Condition
Bound in red cloth with gilt lettering on the spine. Moderate shelf wear and rubbing at the head and tail of the spine. Pages remain clean and intact with sharp typography. No dust jacket present. Overall very good condition for a 1940s scientific publication.
Gallery
Historical context
By the 1940s, protein chemistry had become a central concern in both medicine and nutrition. Scientists were elucidating the structures and roles of amino acids in health and disease, laying the groundwork for later breakthroughs in molecular biology and biochemistry. Publications like this one provided a unified teaching and reference framework for physicians, researchers, and pharmacologists.
Curious Facts, Ephemera, and Trivia
Editor Melville Sahyun was also a pharmaceutical executive and researcher; his work bridged industry and academia.
Contributor Michael Heidelberger is considered one of the fathers of immunochemistry.
The book’s emphasis on protein structure foreshadowed the postwar explosion of molecular biology, including Watson and Crick’s DNA model less than a decade later.
Excerpt
“The word protein is derived from the Greek word proteios, meaning first. It was used by Mulder to designate the complex nitrogen-containing substances that are constituents of all animal and plant tissues. … Proteins are constituents of all living tissues, the amount and kind of protein varying with the particular tissue in question.” (Chapter II, p. 41)
Why it is in the Cabinet
This book represents a crucial stage in biochemical and medical education. It captures how protein chemistry was taught to scientists and physicians in the midst of World War II, reflecting both the scientific progress and the historical moment in which it was published.
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