CHEMISTRY AXD PHARMACY. 5 i 



do not know that the artificial method can at present compete with the 

 natural, but it will probably do so before long, if it does not now. 

 Little did the discoverer dream of the result when he undertook his 

 investigation. When glycerin and oxalic acid are mixed, and the 

 mixture distilled, the chief product under ordinary circumstances is 

 formic acid, a substance found in nature in the bodies of certain 

 ants. Formic acid had been made by the method mentioned for a 

 number of years before it was noticed that something else is formed 

 at the same time. This observation was made about the year 1870, by 

 Tollens, in a chemical factory. On looking into the matter more close- 

 ly, it was found that the second substance is allyl alcohol, already 

 well known. Now this allyl alcohol is closely related to the oil of 

 mustard, but, up to the year 1870, no method was known by which it 

 could be prepared easily and in large quantity. Now it can be made, 

 thanks to the investigation of Tollens, in any desired quantity. Its 

 transformation into the oil of mustard is a comparatively simple mat- 

 ter, and thus starting from the two common substances, glycerin and 

 oxalic acid, it is now practical to pass to the valuable oil of mustard. 

 You will observe that, in this case, the object of the discoverer of the 

 method was not to get the oil of mustard, but simply to learn what 

 else could be formed besides formic acid under the conditions above 

 mentioned. The question which he proposed to answer was not a very 

 elevated one, nor one the answering of which was at all likely to lead 

 to results of practical value ; but, nevertheless, a valuable result did 

 follow. 



At the present time there are several chemists engaged on investi- 

 gations which promise eventually to be of the highest value to phar- 

 macy. Let me attempt to give you some idea of these. For a long 

 time it has been known that from many plants there can be extracted 

 certain constituents which seem to concentrate the medicinal proper- 

 ties of the plants themselves. They form what are sometimes called 

 the active principles of the plants. They are also, and more com- 

 monly, known as the alkaloids. Thus, from the white poppy culti- 

 vated in Asia Minor, Egypt, Hindostan, and elsewhere, is extracted 

 opium, which in turn contains a number of alkaloids, as morphine, 

 codeine, narcotine, etc. ; from Peruvian bark are obtained the valuable 

 alkaloids quinine, cinchonine, etc. ; from the St. Ignatius bean comes 

 strychnine ; from tobacco, nicotine ; from coffee, caffeine, etc. The 

 great value of many of these alkaloids, especially of morphine and 

 quinine for medicinal purposes, has, as we all know, long been recog- 

 nized. They have, however, been but little understood by chemists, 

 and this has been a just reproach to chemistry. They have been 

 studied carefully, better and better methods have been devised for 

 their extraction and purification, but scarcely anything has been done 

 until within a year or two past to clear up their inner nature. Their 

 relations to simple substances were not known, and it seemed quite 



