ThéodoreSome earlier Wikipedia versions, e.g. wiki.de, write Nicolas-Théodore; family sources (see wiki.fr article discussion) guarantee Théodore as ordinary given name, plus a publication in March 1848, "Recherches sur la présence de l'arsenic dans les eaux minérales, Bulletin de l'Académie Nationale de Médecine, tome XVI, p. 721 is signed Th. Gobley; most other publications mention only M. Gobley, with the exception of one in 1868 and one in 1869, both signed T. Gobley; full civility in official acts was in literary order Nicolas Théodore. (Nicolas) Gobley (; 11 May 1811 in Paris – 1 September 1876 in Bagnères-de-Luchon), was the first to isolate and ultimately determine the chemical structure of lecithin, the first identified and characterized member of the phospholipids class. He was also a pioneer researcher in the study and analysis of the chemical components of brain tissues.
Biography and academic courses
Gobley's family originated from the small city Fulvy in the Yonne region, a very rural hilly area of Burgundy. His father had settled at the end of the 18th century as a wine broker in Paris, marrying a young lady in a family long established (since at least the beginning of the 17th century) in that trade in the capital city of France. That family, Boutron, was registered in the 17th and 18th centuries as one of the 12 suppliers of wines to the King's Court.
Wine trading had strong links with alcoholic distillation, some close kin of the Boutron family were indeed spirits distillers, and it is likely this environment that led Gobley to studies in chemistry and pharmacy.
Indeed, an historical study conducted in 1957 by P. et C. Chatagnon on the early steps of brain tissues chemical structure studies mentions that Gobley effected a stay as apprentice by one of his parents named Guerin, indicated as pharmacist (actually, his brother-in-law, Denis Guerin (1798–1888), pharmacist in Paris for a few years in the early 1830s, but more well known as mayor of the city of Fontainebleau during close to 30 years, from 1843 till 1871, and so far as known, not related to the Boutron family).
Whatever the initial lead, further on Gobley entered full grade studies in pharmacy and in the early 1830s attended courses delivered by one of the great figures of French pharmaceutical and chemistry arts of that time, Pierre Jean Robiquet, of whom he became a close collaborator, and ultimately his son-in-law, through marrying Laure Robiquet, one of the daughters of his master and mentor.
Gobley qualified as a pharmacist in 1835, married Laure Robiquet in 1837, and established himself as pharmacist in Paris (60 rue du Bac; the place had been run down when Boulevard Saint Germain was opened some 30 years later); in parallel to his trade, in his personal lab he conducted his research, and followed a path very similar to that of his father-in–law (demised in 1840): he entered the Ecole de Pharmacie as professor in 1842 (he quit in 1847), became a member of the Académie Nationale de Pharmacie in 1843, of which he became president in 1861, and was admitted as a member of the Académie de Médecine that same year.
While conducting various works on a diversified range of topics much like most pharmacists/chemists (interchangeable at the time) of the 19th century, Gobley pursued a lifelong study of lipids in living animals, whereby he demonstrated the universal presence of a fundamental substance, which he named lecithin, and the exact composition of lecithin over the course of thirty years.
Gobley was also a philanthropist, and he was involved in the management of a local administration office for the housing of poorer people in the "Département de la Seine" (today, the greater Paris area including districts 75, 78, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95).
One of Gobley's daughters married composer Paul Collin. Gobley died on 1 September 1876 in the Pyrenean thermal resort of "Bagnères-de-Luchon, where he was on a family trip. His burial place lies at "cimetière Montparnasse" in southern Paris.
Discoverer of lecithin and phospholipids
In the course of the first half of the 19th century, several French chemists had initiated some tries at the chemical components of brain tissues, but tools and methods for analysis were poor and results fairly unsatisfactory; however they had consistently obtained through different methods, mostly through dissolution in warm alcohol of brain matter, a lipidic substance of more or less stable composition which they had diversely called "matière blanche" (Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin), "cérébrote" (J. P. Couërbe), acide cérébrique (Edmond Frémy).
Obviously, the brain tissues were not solely composed of that, and confusion was high as to their actual composition, with especially Edmond Fremy holding, based on his work on "acide cerebrique", for a blend of neutral lipids such as olein and phosphoric acid.
Gobley found a masterly solution to this question in a series of careful incremental steps. Building on a succession of biological tissue models : egg yolk (1846–1847), carp fish eggs (1850), carp fish roe (1850), brain matter of sundry higher class vertebrae such as chicken, and ultimately man, fat matters in human fluids: blood (1852), bile (1856), Gobley, in a series of works assiduously pursued over a span of more than 30 years, classified the several fat matters from a variety of biological tissues, characterized their several properties, identified their respective structure, established bridges between wide apart categories (seminal matter, brain) and branches of zoology (birds, fish, mammals), shed light on similarities of tissues build-up and specified their differences depending on their function (1874).
Early studies on egg yolk chemical components, 1843–1847
In a first step during 1845 ("Recherches chimiques sur le jaune d'œuf", Compte Rendu hebdomadaire Académie des Sciences 1845, 21, 766) Gobley achieved a ground breaking first work where he analysed in detail the lipids in the egg yolk, obtaining from egg yolk byproducts never before evidenced in that matter:
margaric acid, for which he confirmed the chemical breakdown obtained by Mr Varentrapp, at the expense of the variant sustained by Michel Eugène Chevreul oleic acid, for which he confirmed the chemical breakdown obtained by Mr Michel Eugène Chevreul an acid containing phosphorus, that a very careful and delicate series of analyses led him to indisputably identify as glycerophosphoric acid
While evidencing the first two could somehow be looked at with some more or less natural expectation, given their prevailing presence previously demonstrated in a variety of organs or corporeal fluids (such as blood, bile, brain tissues), the latter one was until then exclusively known as a byproduct of direct chemical preparation.
Gobley in addition brought full details as to the constitution of the oily part of egg yolk, which he determined to be made up of oleine, margarine and a cholesterin, previously evidenced by Louis-René Le Canu and which he demonstrated has entirely identical properties to the one (cholesterol) isolated from bile by Michel Eugène Chevreul.
In the immediate wake, in a second step in 1847 ("Recherches chimiques sur le jaune d'oeuf de poule"; par M. Gobley. Deuxième Mémoire. Comptes Rendus hebdomadaires Académie des Sciences 1847, 21, 988) Gobley took a global view of the chemical structure of egg yolk and proposed for its lipid part a model comprising two distinct fractions:
the one, in very small quantities (0.3% of total mass) which he qualified as a nitrogenous fraction totally devoid of phosphor, and which he hinted to be quite probably identical with the higher up mentioned "matière blanche" Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin, "cérébrote" (J.P.Couërbe), and "acide cérébrique" (Edmond Frémy), identified and described from early 19th century years; for this fraction Gobley used the denomination of "matière cérébrique" ("Recherches chimiques sur le jaune d'œuf 2ème mémoire"), then later on the name "cérébrine" ("Recherches chimiques sur les œufs de carpe"); this name "cerebrin" had been created some years before by a German chemist Müller, while fully characterizing its chemical composition and properties; the other, in significant quantities (8.5% of total mass) which he qualified and characterized as definitely containing phosphor under some form, that he prosaically denominated "matière phosphorée" ("phosphoric matter") ("Recherches chimiques sur le jaune d'œuf 2ème mémoire"); this fraction can be degraded into a mixture of margaric acid, oleic acid and glycerophosphoric acid, for the which it is the sole and exclusive origin, Gobley effectively demonstrated that none of these three acids exists on its own within egg yolk.
Bringing to light the chemical bridges from egg yolk to human brain, 1847
In this very same work, Gobley developed an awareness that this phosphoric part was a new, non-characterized and complex component of a precise nature and stable structure, not a mixture of sub-products in varying proportions: If therefore neither one of oleic acid, margaric acid nor glycerophosphoric acid existed as such in the viscous matter (of egg yolk), what kind of a (molecule) can that be (that is their source), that indisputably presents one of the most unusual set of properties within all the (fractions) of biological tissues
Mais si les acides oléïque, margarique et phosphoglycérique ne préexistent pas dans la matière visqueuse, quelle est donc la nature de ce corps, qui est sans contredit l'un des plus curieux de l'organisation animale?
Having recognized the uniqueness of this component from this work in 1847, Gobley henceforth bore most of his research efforts on it.
Already in this same year of 1847, Gobley realized the deep similarities of chemical structure between brain tissues and egg yolk.
Taking up the previous work of Vauquelin, Couërbe and Frémy, he isolated as they had from the fat matters of animal brain as well as from the human brain a phosphoric fraction, but going one step further, he demonstrated that this brain matter yields through hydrolysis exactly the same set of by-products that he had obtained from egg yolk: ever the triad oleic acid, margaric acid, glycerophosphoric acid (Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie 1847, 12, 5).
I have rerun all those experiments using the phosphoric viscous matter from the brain of chicken, of sheep, and finally of man, and ever I am come to the same results. There then exists in the brain, just as in egg yolk, a phosphoric substance which, under the conditions I exercised unto it, has always yielded as decomposition products oleic acid, margaric acid and glycerophosphoric acid.
J'ai répété toutes ces expériences avec la matière visqueuse phosphorée de la cervelle du poulet, du mouton et de l'homme, et je suis arrivé aux mêmes résultats. Il existe donc dans le cerveau, comme dans le jaune d'oeuf, une substance phosphorée qui, dans les conditions où je l'ai placée, m'a toujours donné, pour produits de décomposition, de l'acide oléique, de l'acide margarique et de l'acide phosphoglycérique.
This set of solid results led him into proposing for cerebral tissues a chemical structure parallel to that of egg yolk, relying on a phosphoric part, lecithin, and a non-phosphoric, nitrogenous part, cerebrin ("Recherches chimiques sur les oeufs de carpe". Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie 1850, t17, 401, et t18, 107). This approach set him immediately at odds with the views developed up to then by Edmond Frémy, the prominent specialist of that period regarding the chemical study of the brain and a member of the Académie des Sciences; Frémy's views were that the phosphoric fraction of brain was related to the phospho-oleic acid.
Another twenty years were employed by Gobley to fully demonstrate the point.
The identification and chemical breakdown of lecithin, the first of phospholipids, 1848–1874