PROBLEMS OF MODERN SCIENCE 



us to analyse it, crystallise it, and subject it to all 

 the various chemical operations which chemists use. 

 Such research would, I think, in the present day 

 be impossible in this country, but in America 

 they do not always have an eye to the main chance, 

 and on several occasions commercial firms have 

 stepped forward for the sake of what looks at least 

 like pure science. Messrs Armour and Co., of 

 Chicago, set up a special plant to enable Dr 

 Kendall to separate out this thyroxin and subse- 

 quently examine it a special plant costing many 

 thousands of pounds. In order to obtain the 

 quantity he required he had to use six thousand 

 pounds of ox thyroid. They can collect that 

 quantity in America in the big packing-houses. 

 Six thousand pounds of thyroid to start with how 

 much of the material do you think they finished 

 up with ? About a hundred and fifty grains. 

 There are seven thousand grains in a pound, and 

 a little arithmetic will convince you that it was a 

 very small fraction of a pound of this material 

 which they got in the end. But it was sufficient 

 for Dr Kendall to carry out his researches upon. 

 The quantity which is daily thrown into our 

 blood, which looks like next to nothing, must be 

 an enormously minute fraction, if one may use 

 so apparently contradictory a phrase. But this 

 minute fraction is necessary for the maintenance 

 of normal nutrition. 

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