Sir Archibald Edward Garrod

…and 1909, English physician Sir Archibald Garrod initiated the analysis of inborn errors of metabolism in humans in terms of biochemical genetics. Alkaptonuria, inherited as a recessive, is characterized by excretion in the urine of large amounts of the substance called alkapton, or homogentisic acid, which renders the urine black…

In 1929 British physician Sir Archibald Garrod emphasized this when he wrote:

…in 1908 by British physician Sir Archibald Garrod, who postulated that inherited disorders such as alkaptonuria and albinism result from reduced activity or complete absence of enzymes involved in certain biochemical pathways. Garrod’s identification and categorization of inborn errors of metabolism represented an important conceptual advance in 20th-century medical genetics.

In 1908 British physician Sir Archibald Garrod postulated that four inherited conditions of lifelong duration—alkaptonuria, pentosuria, albinism, and cystinuria—were caused by defects in specific biochemical pathways due to the diminished activity or complete lack of

In 1908 British physician Archibald Garrod proposed the important idea that the human disease alkaptonuria, and certain other hereditary diseases, were caused by inborn errors of metabolism, suggesting for the first time that linked genes had molecular action at the cell level. Molecular genetics did not begin in earnest…