50 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



others, the solution of which may in the end contribute to clearing up 

 greater mysteries. There are hosts of minor questions to be answered, 

 and these must be answered before the fundamental questions of na- 

 ture can be. Through the insignificant lie the roads of advancement. 

 A fallen leaf, a bit of stone, a tiny flower, a microscopic animal, may 

 contain within themselves the answers to the most important ques- 

 tions. It is not the leaf, or the stone, or the animal that is specially 

 investigated, but the principles involved in their existence. Explain 

 these, if possible, and the explanations will serve for a thousand other 

 things. Then, too, though the explanations sought for may not be 

 found, the correct study of any fact or phenomenon of nature is of 

 assistance to science as a whole. It strengthens her forces, it supplies 

 her with ammunition. An enormous amount of camp-work must be 

 done, or results of value can not be attained. Let the work upon the 

 insignificant problems cease, and the world would sink into darkness. 

 To fully understand the laws of the universe as a whole, we must first 

 learn all we can in regard to the smallest subdivisions of the universe 

 the atoms. 



As regards the idea that an investigation must bear direct fruit to 

 be valuable, I would say that the reply to this is contained partly in 

 what I have already said, but it can be refuted much more clearly and 

 appropriately for our present purpose by the consideration of an ex- 

 ample or two. As I remarked a few minutes since, when a new sub- 

 stance is discovered by a chemist, the first question asked by most 

 persons is, What is it good for ? what can it be used for ? As I desire 

 to show that pharmacy is much indebted to chemistry in recent times, 

 it would seem that I ought first to show that many new substances 

 have been discovered by chemists which are of use in pharmacy. This 

 is, however, so obvious that I prefer to show how some of the most 

 abstruse chemical investigations may ultimately yield fruit of much 

 value to pharmacy. In an address which I had the honor to deliver a 

 few years ago in this building, before the " Medical and Chirurgical 

 Faculty of Maryland," I referred to the purely scientific investigations 

 which led to the discovery of choral, and to a method for the manu- 

 facture of salicylic acid on the large scale. It can easily be shown 

 that these discoveries were made, not because the discoverers were at- 

 tempting to find substances gifted with the properties which these two 

 are known to possess, but that they were made as the result of abstruse 

 chemical investigation, undertaken simply with the object of adding 

 to the possessions of science. I shall not repeat what I then said, for 

 there are enough new examples, as well as old, to furnish us with 

 interesting material. 



Of comparatively recent discoveries, which may be classed among 

 those which are of direct importance to pharmacy, is that of the arti- 

 ficial preparation of the oil of mustard. This substance is now made 

 by a patented process entirely independently of the mustard-plant. I 



