ACHIEVEMENTS OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRY DUISBERG. 251 



an age when nervous disorders are so conmion is not to be wondered 

 at. I need merely remind you of the new adalin which has proved 

 exceedmgly useful. Recently Emil Fischer, the master of chemical 

 research to whom the pharmaceutical industry is indebted for the 

 synthetic purm bases, viz, caffein, theobromine, and theocin, as well 

 as the valued remedies, veronal and sajodin, has succeeded, after long 

 and fruitless labors, in elucidatmg the constitution of tannin and 

 ])roducmg it synthetically. He has thus proved that it might be 

 possible to manufacture tannmg agents of all kinds artificial!}^ and 

 has opened up a new and promising field for research. 



CHEMOTHERAPY. 



But a short while ago Ehrlich drew attention to another promising 

 branch of pharmaceutical-medical chemistry, viz, the treatment of 

 infectious diseases by chemical means. After many years' arduous 

 labor and after many thousand experiments on different animals this 

 master of medicme and chemistry succeeded in demonstrating that it 

 is possible to produce chemical substances wliich will kill the parasites 

 in the human body without injuring their host and that this action 

 is a function of the chemical constitution. The new science, with its 

 magical bullets directed only against the injurious organisms m the 

 body, but not affectmg its cells, pursued its course from aminoplienyl- 

 arsinic acid (atoxyl) to diaminooxyarsenobenzole (salvarsan). Thus 

 a new synthetic preparation, an arsenic compound, is added to the old 

 and highly effective remedies, mercury, qumme, and salicylic acid. 

 It is certam that we are here only at the beginning of a new develop- 

 ment. We know already that we are able to combat not only 

 spirochetes but also bacterial diseases like tuberculosis. Even 

 carchioma and sarcoma, those growths so destructive to humanity, 

 whose cause is, however, not yet understood, can probably be influ- 

 enced in a like mamier by means of selenium compounds, as first 

 pointed out by Emil Fischer. But were we to learn to cure diseases 

 due to trypanosomes and plasmodia, what a great work we should 

 have accomplished in the interest of humanity and social economy, 

 for it is in the most fruitful lands mdeed that these diseases, malaria 

 and sleeping sickness, are to be found, and man and beast are ruth- 

 lessly destroyed by them. Neither salvarsan nor atoxyl are of 

 service here, and therefore other hitherto unknown remedies niust be 

 found. 



While the treatment of syphilis, with its terrible consequences, is 

 stUl unpcrfect in spite of mercury and salvarsan, let us hope that the 

 systematic experiments carried out in the laboratory with the in- 

 numerable products which chemistry is able to produce from mercury 

 and from arsenic will finally lead to complete success. 



