Pharmacology 59 



not additive in their effects. The 'adjuvantia' of 

 the old pharmacologists were therefore not chimeras, 

 but, on the contrary, a distinct idea corresponding 

 to the name and to the thing itself. 



"This ancient idea, under a new form, brings us 

 to the study of the drug itself. Under the influence 

 of the successes of the modern synthesis of medica- 

 ments, and the misunderstood theory of the so- 

 called active principle, we have been gradually 

 abandoning drugs, in spite of experiments carried 

 on for hundreds of years, and even, in the case of 

 certain drugs, for thousands of years. Many phy- 

 sicians have already disaccustomed themselves to 

 the use of drugs. But they cannot be replaced, and 

 the wish that I expressed in London, in 1909, 'let 

 us go back to drugs,' found an echo much sooner 

 than I expected, and in more extended circles than 

 I had dared to hope. 



"How can one replace rhubarb by a solution of 

 emodin, ipecac by emetine, opium by morphine, 

 digitalis by digitoxin, ergot by ergotoxine or by the 

 interesting bases isolated by Barger and Dale, which 

 according to the recent experiments of Kehrer, do 

 not even act on the uterus? Emodin, emetine, qui- 

 nine, digitoxin, and morphine are pharmacological 

 individuals different from the drugs themselves, 

 and should be numbered among remedies not to 

 replace the drugs, but to stand beside them. 



"Since we know that there is in the drug a domi- 

 nant principle, but that the effect is not produced 

 by this principle alone, we are more than ever 

 obliged to make a profound chemical study of the 

 drug in all its elements. The object of pharmaco- 



