278 Botanic Drugs 



table resins. It is a diatomic phenol. Thymol 

 and some other vegetable products are also phenols. 

 This natural resorcin was formerly much employed 

 internally as an antipyretic and antiseptic. It 

 was especially esteemed in the treatment of fer- 

 mentative dyspepsia and gastric ulcer. 



Then came the synthetic chemist, and in his 

 hands resorcin became metadihydroxybenzene pro- 

 duced by the reaction of fused sodium hydroxide 

 upon metabenzenedisulphonate; and this is the only 

 "resorcin" now on the market. It is quite toxic, 

 producing convulsions, and is used principally in 

 so-called "hair tonics" and to remove epidermic 

 scales in chronic skin diseases. But, as an internal 

 remedy, the synthetic chemist ruined "resorcin." 



The reader will please permit me to introduce a 

 little homily at this point. Thomas Bodley Scott, 

 in his book, "Modern Medicine and Some Modern 

 Remedies," published in 1916, says: "The effects of 

 the plant remedies are still often a matter of doubt, 

 though the standardization of tinctures and the ex- 

 traction of alkaloids have put things on much surer 

 ground; these remedies, though very often useful 

 some of them, indeed, being seemingly indispensable 

 will eventually, I think, lose much of their promi- 

 nent position, for the reason that they are foreign 

 to the animal system. The inorganic remedies 

 come under rather different heading; many of them, 

 like iron, arsenic, iodine, potash, and soda, are 

 already constituents of the flesh and blood, and in 

 a measure they can be regarded as body foods; but 

 the great future, I think, belongs to the organic 

 animal remedies, to the ductless gland extracts, 

 and to organic chemistry." 



