The work of Fritz Pregl is an example of the maxim that every difficulty is an opportunity. It was the problems inherent in analyzing organic matter that motivated Pregl to take microanalysis into new realms of exactitude, developing new instrumentation for the precise measurement of such substances. Such microanalytic tools paved the way for later biochemical research on pigments, hormones, and vitamins. Pregl's innovations in the field earned him the 1923 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Pregl was born on September 3, 1869, in Laibach, Austria (now Ljubljana, Republic of Slovenia), the only son of Friderike Schlacker and Raimund Pregl, the treasurer of a bank in nearby Krain (now Kranj). Though his father died when he was quite young, Pregl finished Gymnasium or high school in Laibach before he and his mother moved in 1887 to Graz, where he studied medicine at the University of Graz. Early in his academic career, Pregl demonstrated...