The body uses it in many processes, the most notable one
being nitrogen excretion. Urea is widely used in fertilizers as a
convenient source of nitrogen. Urea is also an important raw
material for the chemical industry. The synthesis of this organic
compound by Friedrich Wöhler in ***8 from an inorganic precursor
was an important milestone in the development of organic chemistry,
as it showed for the first time that a molecule found in living
organisms could be synthesized in the lab without biological
starting materials (thus contradicting a theory widely prevalent at
one time, called vitalism).
