In photosynthesis, oxygen comes from water: from a 1787 book for women by Monsieur De Fourcroy
It is now well established that the source ofoxygen in photosynthesis is water. The earliest suggestionpreviously known to us had come from Rene´ BernardWurmser (1930). Here, we highlight an earlier report byMonsieur De Fourcroy (1787), who had already discussedthe broad outlines of such a hypothesis in a book onChemistry written for women. We present here a freetranslation of a passage from this
