and tissues. At the time when epinephrine and thyroxin were about 

 the only hormones known, he fek that we had just made a beginning 

 in the study of those processes of the body which are under chemical 

 control. True it is that he Avas not interested in the superficial 'ac- 

 tions' of drugs, which are studied by many who are satisfied to go 

 no further. His interest was in the 'nature of things,' the nature of 

 the great chemical laboratory, the living organism. If he knew that 

 something in some plant, some animal poison, some gland, or some 

 bacterial toxin brought about a change when introduced into the 

 body, he wanted terribly to know the nature of this chemical sub- 

 stance, as necessarily it must bear some relationship to one of the 

 chemical constituents of the cell with which it reacted to bring about 

 the secondary reactions observed, as changes in muscle tone, respira- 

 tion, and so forth. Abel was as close to the bottom of things as one 

 could go. He was a biologist of the most fundamental type. If one 

 wishes to obtain in Abel's own words his concepts of these matters, 

 they may be found in his presidential address to the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science (Science, 1934), as well 

 as in his letter on pharmacology to Dr. Abraham Flexner, which is 

 given in Dr. Voegtlin's biography of Dr. Abel (1, p. 397). 



During the long life of a man such as Dr. Abel things are certain 

 to change, and the problems of today are entirely different from those 

 Avhich he encountered in his most active years. If pharmacology has 

 retrogressed since Dr. Abel began it in this country, those of us who 

 have followed should not put the blame on him but on ourselves, 

 possibly for not taking our share of the organization and the atten- 

 tion to general principles, which is necessary for the well being of 

 any medical discipline, and perhaps more than for any other reason 

 our failure to grasp just what was uppermost in Abel's mind as the 

 function of the pharmacologist— the solution of the innermost chem- 

 ical secrets of the living organism. 



In all that is going on in the world today, with the utter chaos of 

 thought, in spite of the terrific increase in scientific knowledge and 

 technical ability, it is becoming more and more apparent that it is 

 the man that is needed, rather than knowledge alone, the man with 

 ideals and the courage to maintain them. But constructive ideals 

 need knowledge, which can come only with study, training, and ex- 

 perience. All of these Abel had. It was this which made it possible 

 for him to see what was best in medicine in his time, and '^vhat prob- 

 lems were of the most importance for investigation. Abel was ahead 

 of his time in this country. His desire to get to the bottom of matters 



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