ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out two different views of how chemistry can be applied to biology. These views depend on different general principles which may be called analogy and analysis. Analysis is taken in its most literal sense, to mean dividing things into spatially smaller pieces. An alternative and attractive way of viewing biochemistry is as the ultimate extension of biological analysis in terms of constituent parts. In this aspect, it appears as a sort of submicroscopic anatomy. An alternative and attractive way of viewing biochemistry is as the ultimate extension of biological analysis in terms of constituent parts. Both the strength and limitations of the approach to biochemistry via analogies are well illustrated in the study of biological oxidations. The biochemical spies are isotopic tracers. It was a crucial development in biochemistry when isotopic methods were introduced around the time of the Second World War, for they provided the first reasonably general way of following chemical changes without disrupting organization.
