ABSTRACT
Archibald E. Garrod was appointed assistant physician at the Hospital for Sick Children on Great Ormond Street in 1892, and for the rest of his life he remained deeply interested in diseases of children. He was interested in studies of normal and pathological urine, especially in differences of their coloration. According to D. R. Graham, the idea that alkaptonuria might be due to a chemical error in metabolism first occurred to Garrod one afternoon while he was walking home from the hospital to 9 Chandos Street in London. Garrod’s brilliant deductions might have ushered in the field of biochemical genetics. In a seminal paper, J. B. S. Haldane emphasized the genetic basis of human chemical individuality, drawing attention to the pioneering work of Garrod. The genetic and biochemical investigations of Beadle and Tatum, using Neurospora, led to the firm establishment of the principles of biochemical genetics.
