August 6, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



175 



Phenylethylamine, derived by decarboxylation 

 from plienyl-a-amino-propionic acid or phenyl- 

 alanine, as follows: 



/\ /\ 



I I I 



II + CO, 



CH,.CH.NHjCOOH CHj.CHj.NHj 



FheDylalauine 



CH 



/ 



HN 



I 

 HC 



\ 



C.CH,.CH,.JJH, 



/S'-Imidoazolylethylamine, histamin, obtained by 

 decarboxylation of histidine, as follows: 



CH 



-A 



+ CO, 



HN N -> HN _ 



II II 



HC= C.CHj.CH.NHj.COOH HC=C.CH,.CHj.NH, 



IV. I come now to the concluding por- 

 tion of my address. That science in gen- 

 eral is a basic fact in the development of 

 commerce and industry seems to be fully 

 appreciated in this city, as shown by the 

 establishment of the Mellon Institute of 

 Industrial Research and School of Specific 

 Industries, through the munificence of two 

 of your public-spirited citizens, the Messrs. 

 Richard B. and Andrew W. Mellon. I be- 

 lieve that no act of their lives will give 

 them more enduring satisfaction than this 

 which marks out your city as one more 

 great center of industry which acknowl- 

 edges the dependence of all advance in ma- 

 terial civilization on the quiet labors of the 

 investigator. This dependence has been 

 forcibly expressed by former ambassador 

 James Bryce in an address to the members 

 of the National Academy of Sciences. 



You men of science are really the rulers of the 

 world. It is in your hands that lies control of the 

 forces of activity; it is you who are going to make 

 the history of the future because all commerce 

 and all industry is to-day far more than ever the 

 child and product of science. ... It is in your 

 hands that the future lies, far more than in those 

 of military men or politicians. 



Let me also in this connection recall the 

 inspiring words of that great investigator 



and benefactor of mankind, Louis Pasteur, 

 which point out the still wider influence of 

 science. He wrote: 



Laboratories and discoveries are correlative 

 terms; if you suppress laboratories, physical sci- 

 ence will be stricken with barrenness and death, 

 it will become mere powerless information instead 

 of a science of progress and futurity; give it back 

 its laboratories, and life, fecundity and power 

 will reappear. . . . Ask that they be multiplied 

 and completed. They are the temples of the fu- 

 ture, of riches and of comfort. There humanity 

 grows greater, better, stronger. There she can 

 read the works of nature, works of progress and 

 universal harmony, while humanity's own works 

 are too often those of barbarism, of fanaticism and 

 destruction. 



And here I shall permit myself to speak 

 more specifically of the paramount impor- 

 tance of chemistry in biological and med- 

 ical research. The subjects to which I have 

 been calling your attention to-night, viz., 

 the still unknown chemical properties and 

 molecular structure, with the single excep- 

 tion of epinephrin, of the mysterious, cor- 

 relating substances stored and formed in 

 the many organs of internal secretion, and 

 the equally unknown character of numer- 

 ous constituents of the circulating blood, 

 both offer a virgin field to the biologist with 

 a chemist's training. 



The practical importance of decisive 

 chemical advances along this line are hardly 

 to be overstated. At present we meet only 

 vast confusion and contradictory theories. 

 A single clean-cut discovery, the separa- 

 tion from another of these glands of a defi- 

 nite chemical individual shown to possess- 

 one or more of the specific actions of the- 

 gland would clear away the mists at once, 

 and we should see the same rapid progress 

 that has followed the isolation of epine- 

 phrin, which is only one, and perhaps not- 

 the most important, constituent of the 

 suprarenal gland. 



What a flood of light was thrown on the 

 whole question of carbohydrate metabolism 



