What are organic compounds ?

All the living beings are composed of organic compounds. The organic compounds are
mainly the compounds of carbon. The branch of chemistry which deals with the study
of organic compounds is known as organic chemistry. It also has a unique history. It
came into existence when a Swedish chemist Torben Bergman in 1770 distinguished
between organic and inorganic compounds. Berzelius a leading Swedish chemist in 1815
proposed the Vital Force Theory according to which the organic compounds are only
produced under the influence of some mysterious force existing only in the living beings
also known as vital force. Many scientists believed this theory to be true. But in the
very next year 1816 Michel Chevruel showed that the organic compounds without any
vital force can be turned into other organic compounds and he made soap. Vital force
theory suffered a death blow in 1828 when Fedrick Wohler isolated an organic
compound from an inorganic one accidentally! He turned ammonium cyanide, an inorganic
compound to urea, an organic compound only by heating it. It showed that no vital force
was required for synthesizing an organic compound. From then, chemists started making
organic compound: Soap (Fatty acids and glycerol in 1816), Urea (in 1828), Mauve Dye
(in 1856), DDT (in 1874) etc. The modern definition of organic compounds is carbon
compounds containing usually hydrogen and one or more additional elements such as
oxygen, nitrogen, Sulphur, halogen, potassium etc. because carbon is essential
constituent of all organic compounds. Organic compounds play an important role in our
day to day life. The food we eat is essentially a mixture of organic compounds. The
changes which the food undergoes inside our body are organic chemical reactions. The
clothes we wear either cotton or synthetic all are organic in nature. Many things from
soaps, cosmetics, perfumes to explosives, rubber, insecticides all are organic. They are
also used in medicinal field there fore they form an important part of our lives.