August 19, 1886] 
stand still for a moment and see the direction in which modern 
therapeutics is tending. Connected on the one hand with 
chemistry and physiology, and on the other with pathology and 
medicine, it is justifiable to expect that the recent advances in 
these departments of knowledge would have a stimulating effect 
on the progress of therapeutics. 
Dr. Lauder Brunton, in his address (which we print in 
full) before the Section of Pharmacology, illustrated one aspect 
of this influence by discussing the connection between chemical 
constitution and physiological action. It will readily be seen 
from a study of his remarks how important an effect the line of 
research which he indicated will have on the progress of rational 
therapeutics, which is based on a knowledge of the physio- 
logical action ofadrug. Dr. Brunton’s address shows a hopeful 
sign of advance in the treatment of disease by scientific methods 
and not by mere empiricism. 
One of the most important communications made to the 
Association, and deserving of mention here, was that by Prof. 
©. Liebreich, of Berlin, on lanolin as a therapeutic agent. 
This substance, which is a cholesterin-fat from sheep’s wool, 
is much more rapidly absorbed by the skin than glycerol-fats or 
vaselin, this property being probably connected with the fact 
that in nature it is closely associated with, if not formed by, 
keratin-containing cells, such as those of the skin, hair, feathers, 
&c. Sucha readily absorbable fat, which is unirritating, and 
will serve as a vehicle for medicaments, has long been a de- 
sideratum, and it is probable that lanolin will be a most im- 
portant agent in the treatment of skin diseases and of local 
disorders beneath the skin, as in the joints. 
Space does not admit of a discussion of the numerous other 
interesting subjects, chiefly technical, introduced at the meeting 
of the Association. The interesting questions brought forward 
by Dr. Taafe in his address on public medicine included the 
spread of scarlatina by means of milk, a subject the investiga- 
tion of which has been undertaken by the Local Government 
Board, and will no doubt yield important results to preventive 
medicine. 
OV THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CHEMI- 
CAL CONSTITUTION AND PHYSIOLOGICAL 
ACTION? 
“HE meeting of the {British Medical Association is not for 
mutual instruction only; it is also for recreation ; and, 
probably, many members of this Association will utilise the 
opportunity which a meeting at the sea-side, like the present 
one at Brighton, affords them of indulging in that excellent 
occupation for an idle man—of watching the waves on the sea- 
shore and speculating how far each of them will come. If one 
have only half an hour to spare, it is difficult to say whether the 
tide is ebbing or flowing; it is only by watching for a longer 
time that one can be certain that the water is really moving in 
one direction or another. Probably a great part of the charm 
which this occupation possesses is due to the resemblance which 
one involuntarily traces between the edb and flow of waters and 
that of human affairs—individual, national, or racial. The life 
of a single man is very short in comparison with the history of 
race ; andit is often very difficult to say whether mankind is 
advancing or retrograding, unless we compare his condition at 
epochs widely removed from one another. 
On doing this, we find a general consensus of opinion, to the 
effect that civilisation has steadily advanced ; and this advance- 
ment is usually divided into four stages, characterised by the 
nature of the tools or weapons employed. In the first, or 
Paleolithic Age, man employed weapons or tools of flint roughly 
chipped into shape and unpolished. In the next, or Neolithic 
Age, the implements consisted of stone, but they were polished. 
The next age is characterised by the employment of bronze as a 
material, and the fourth and highest stage by the employment of 
iron. These stages are not all marked off from one another, for 
we find them together in the same country or in different countries. 
Thus, the age in which at present we live is recognised as the 
Tron Age, on account of the large employment of that metal ; 
but we find that in various countries stone, more or less rudely 
ashioned, is still used in the manufacture of weapons or tools. 
X An Address delivered at the opening of the Section of Pharmacology 
andi Therapeutics, at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association 
held in Brighton, August 1886. By Thomas Lauder Brunton, M.D., 
F-R.S., Lecturer on Materia Medica and Therapeutics at St. Bartholomew's 
Hospital ; President of the Section. 
NATURE 
Se5 
For example, when I was in the Colonial Exhibition lately with 
Mr. Norman Lockyer, he pointed out a kind of threshing im- 
plement, such as is now used in Cyprus. It consists of a flat 
board, in the under side of which are embedded a number of 
stone celts exactly like those made by prehistoric man, and per- 
haps used by him for a similar purpose as well as for axes. In 
the same way that we recognise four stages in the development 
of the implements used by man in the arts or in warfare, we 
may, I think, recognise four stages in the development of the im- 
plements he has used in the treatment of disease. In the first stage 
crude drugs were employed, prepared in the roughest manner, such 
as powdered cinchona or metallic antimony. In the next stage 
these were converted into more active and more manageable 
forms, suchas extracts or solutions, watery or alcoholic. In the 
third stage the pure active principles, separated from the crude 
drugs, were employed, e.g. morphine and quinine. In the fourth 
stage, instead of attempting to extract our medicines from the 
natural products in which they are contained, we seek to make 
for ourselves such substances as shall possess the particular action 
we desire. Now, just as we find stone and iron implements 
occasicnally used together in the same country, so we find that 
drugs belonging to the different stages mentioned are used at 
the same time. For example, we may find crude powders, alco- 
holic extracts, and pure alkaloids all contained in the same pill. 
Nay more, we may sometimes give to the patient in addition to 
all these, a medicine made artificially. But, while this condition 
still exists, we notice that crude drugs are being less and less 
used, and their place is gradually being taken by pure active 
principles. We may say, then, that we are passing at present 
from the Stone Age into the Bronze Age of pharmacology ; and 
may indeed be said to be just entering on the Iron Age. This 
age may be said to have begun about twenty years ago, when 
the researches which my predecessor in this office, Dr. Fraser, 
‘made with Prof. Crum Brown upon the connection between 
physiological action and chemical constitution, inaugurated a 
new era in pharmacology. They found that, by modifying the 
chemical constitution of strychnine, they could also alter its 
physiological action, and convert it from a poison which would 
tetanise the spinal cord into one which would paralyse the motor 
nerves. 
We might perhaps date the beginning of this agefrom Blake’s 
attempts to show that a connection exists between the form in 
which various bodies crystallise, and the mode in which they act 
upon an animal body. Richardson, too, had observed that, 
amongst various compounds of carbon, certain differences existed 
in physiological action which might be supposed to correspond 
to differences in their chemical composition. And at the same 
time that Crum Brown and Fraser were making their experi- 
ments, Schroff in Vienna, and Jolyet and Cahours in France, had 
independently arrived at somewhat similar conclusions ; neverthe- 
less, I think we may fairly say that it was the experiments of Crum 
Brown and Fraser which fairly started pharmacology in the new 
direction in which it has since been steadily advancing. It 
would be impossible for me to enter at all fully into the recent 
development of this branch of research, but I think it may be 
both interesting and useful to try to give you ashort and popular 
account of the chief points already made out ; and, in doing so, 
I may perhaps be excused for using, almost to the extent of 
abusing, similes which are not precisely exact, but which may 
be useful in giving you a rough idea of a somewhat complicated 
subject. 
We have all heard of the ‘‘ flesh-pots of Egypt” ; but I find 
that everybody is not acquainted with the ‘‘ flesh-pots of Shiloh,” 
though ‘good little Samuel” has probably been frequently held 
up before us as an example to be followed, and possibly the 
naughty sons of Elias an example to be avoided. When these 
sons of Eli were priests in Shiloh, their custom was, when any 
man offered a sacrifice, to send their servants with a ‘‘ flesh- 
hook” of three teeth, in his hand, which he struck into the pan, 
or kettle, or cauldron, or pot; and all that the flesh-hooks 
brought up the priest took for himself. 
It is obvious that what the priest’s man brought up would 
depend very greatly on two things, viz. the contents of the pot 
and the nature of the hook—whether it were large or small, 
sharp or pointed, single-pronged or many-pronged. It is 
obvious, too, that a very slight alteration of the points, by the 
judicious application of a file or whetstone, might considerably 
influence the savouriness of the priest’s dinner. With the small 
pots that they were likely to have in Shiloh, it would not matter 
much what the nature of the handle was ; but it would matter 
