CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION AND PHARMACOLOGICAL ACTION. 405 



As a result of this and other considerations the view has become 

 prevalent that the chemo-therapeutic and the bio-therapeutic ten- 

 dencies are absolutely different from each other. As late as two 

 years ago a certain high authority said that the antitoxins act after 

 the manner of specific forces (in a physical sense). If this theory 

 of "forces" were to be upheld every possibility of bridging the con- 

 tradictions would be completely lost, for then every tertium compara- 

 tionis would be lacking. 



If instead of this we assume that both kinds of substances exert 

 their pow y er by purely chemical means, we shall find that certain 

 questions arise which are of great significance for the further develop- 

 ment of therapeutics. Convinced that this is correct I have busied 

 myself during the past ten years with attempts to prove the chemical 

 theory of toxins and antitoxins experimentally. I believe I am 

 justified in claiming that I have caused the chemical conception to 

 be accepted among ever-widening circles. This 1 have accomplished : 



1. By the introduction of the test-tube experiments. 



2. By systematic investigations concerning the mutual satisfying 



affinities. 



3. By the demonstration of toxoids and their various modifications. 



I. 



If then the medicaments of known constitution and the biothera- 

 peutic products, both act only in a chemical manner, i.e., if both 

 effect the organism chemically, the first problem to be solved is to 

 determine on what factor the very dissimilar action of these two 

 classes of bodies depends. It will be well to begin with the simplest 

 condition, and to study first the mode of action of bodies whose 

 chemical constitution is well known. 



It is particularly desirable to gain an insight into the relations exist- 

 ing between chemical constitution and pharmacological action. Dur- 

 ing the last few decades these have come to play an important role in 

 the modern synthetic tendencies. The history of this tendency is 

 comparatively recent, dating from the year 1859 when Stahlschmidt 

 demonstrated that strychnine loses its tetanizing action when a 

 methyl group is introduced, being transformed into a curare-like 

 poison. In view of the fact that this methylation forms an ammo- 

 nium base, Fraser and Braun studied a number of other ammonium 

 bases derived from various alkaloids and found that all of these bodies 



