The words organic and inorganic have undergone considerable change of meaning within recent years and these changes have led to much confusion in thought and practice. Organic means pertaining to an organ; connected with or pertaining to the bodily or vital organs of plant or animal--organic structure, organic disease, organic chemistry, organic function; combined with function; having a definite, systematic structural arrangement; organized; an organic whole; a complete unity. Originally, organic chemistry was that dealing with the products of animal and vegetable organisms. At present, it is largely restricted to the study of carbon and hydrogen compounds.

Not long since, anatomy was defined as "the science of organization." The anatomist differentiated between the words organized and organic. The term organized was used to refer to things which have organs--parts which are differentiated from each other. Organic was applied to things which result from the vital (synthetic) activities of organized bodies. Substances which did not result from vital synthesis were referred to as inorganic.

Today this is all changed. The term organic is used to designate all carbon compounds, whether formed in the body or not. The term inorganic is now regularly applied to food substances that result from the synthetic activities of the living organism which were formerly called organic. The best examples of this are the food salts contained in all plant and animal foods. There is a tendency to make no distinction between the salts in foods and those in the chemist's laboratory. Indeed, it is commonly thought that the salts of the laboratory may be readily used by the body as substitutes for the salts that should exist in our foods.

All of this confusion has come about by defining organic to mean carbon and hydrogen compounds, whereas, it really means products of the synthetic activities of the organs of an organized being--an organism. Bear in mind that the basic meaning of organic is pertaining to an organ. Chemists should stick to their own terminology and cease trying to pervert the terms of biology.

The chemist observes that silt may eventually become flesh, but he overlooks the many refining metabolisms through which it must be carried by both plant and animal before it can be "made flesh." He can only feebly imitate, he cannot duplicate, Nature's creations.

The chemist manipulates the elements that filled the great void before the spirit of the Supreme Synthesizer acted upon it. He can produce a dummy egg, but he cannot make a viable one. A viable egg contains all the potentialities of a new animal. The chemist's egg seems to have everything--that is, everything except the power to evolve into a new animal. Man's creations turn out to be clay, slag, delusion. The chemist cannot make an egg that will hatch. His science is no match for the rooster. The compounds of evolution are vastly different from the synthetic compounds of the chemist. Only his egomania causes the chemist to think he can create a viable egg out of lifeless elements.

The natural order of nutrition is for the plant to "eat" the soil and the animal to eat the spare products of the plant. This order was established many long ages ago and has been in operation as long as plant and animal life have existed side by side on our globe. It has worked very successfully throughout all this time and our present efforts to skip the refining work of the plant and go directly to the soil for our sustenance makes us appear ridiculous. The common use of table salt (sodium chloride), the employment by physicians of calcium salts, iron salts, and other such preparations and the employment of so-called "tissue salts" by certain types of physicians amount to an effort to skip the plant and eat the soil. Sprinkling various salts of this nature on foods is a similar effort. These practices are direct outgrowths of our science mania.

The body does not employ nitrogen as such--it uses proteins, or, more specifically, amino acids. Acceptable amino acids are manufactured by the plant kingdom only. The animal cannot manufacture them out of the elements. The body does not use carbon as such--it uses carbohydrates, or, more specifically, simple sugar: monosaccharide. Acceptable sugars are prepared by the plant kingdom only. The animal can convert some of the protein compounds into sugar, but it cannot manufacture sugar out of the elements. The body does not use carbon in making fats. It uses chiefly fatty acids. It can manufacture fat out of sugar and protein, but it cannot manufacture it out of the elements. It is dependent upon plants to take the "dust of the earth" and make this into acceptable compounds--organic substances. The animal body cannot manufacture organic salts out of the elements of the soil. It must receive these ready prepared from the plant. The animal is incapable of manufacturing vitamins out of the elements. From the plant it must receive either the vitamin or the pro-vitamin. The synthetic activities of plants manufacture the food supplies of the whole animal world.

Can the chemist supplant the work of the plant? This has long been his dream. He has sought to duplicate the products of the plant world and make these serve as foods for man and animals. He claims a certain measure of success. But, since the body draws a sharp line of distinction between laboratory compounds of all kinds and those resulting from the synthetic activities of plant life, we prefer to apply the term organic to these latter and inorganic to the crude substances of the earth and to the products of the laboratory.

We have not learned to make, nor even to imitate living substances. We know that animals are dependent upon plants for their food and cannot go directly to the soil for it. We can neither synthesize these substances in the laboratory, nor can we tear them down in the kitchen or in the laboratory in "purifying" them (extracting their salts from them) without greatly impairing their food values. It is a mistake to assume, as these experimenters do, that chemical substances constitute nourishment irrespective of their form or condition.

Chlorophyll is the great organic laboratory. By its aid and the aid of sunlight plants take up the crude elements of the soil and carbon and nitrogen from the air and synthesize these into organic combinations. Plants alone can do this. Animals cannot do it. Man cannot do it in the laboratory.

Plants, at least working plants as distinguished from parasitic and saprophytic plants, manufacture proteins, carbohydrates, hydrocarbons, organic salts and vitamins. We say that soil is the food of plants; we could, with equal propriety say that plant substances are the soil of animals.

"All nutrient material is formed in the vegetable kingdom, in the growing process--the green state," says Trall. "No animal organization can create or form any food of any kind. All that the animal can do is to use or appropriate what nutrient material the vegetable kingdom has provided. The vegetable kingdom is intermediate between the mineral and animal kingdom."