xxviii Annual Address. [February, 1916. 



and I realized a more powerful remedy was essential if more 

 lives were to be saved. Vedder's experiments then came back 

 to my mind, and I determined to try to obtain some soluble 

 form of emetine which might be injected subcutaneously, 

 for although I expected it would cause much sickness, I 

 argued to myself that it could not be vomited out of the 

 subcutaneous tissues, so ought to be more effective than the 

 crude ipecacuanha by the mouth, which contains only about 

 two per cent of emetine. I found that both a hydrochloride 

 and a hydrobromide of emetine were available, and with some 

 difficulty I obtained from England a few grains of the former. 

 I had not long to wait for an opportunity of testing it, for 

 a patient was admitted to my ward with a diagnosis of collapse 

 from cholera, which I found by microscopical examination was 

 a most severe case of amoebic dysentery. The patient could 

 not retain even one grain of ipecacuanha, so I realized her only 

 chance lay in hypodermic injections of emetine hydrochloride. 

 To my surprise one-sixth of a grain, equal to fifteen grains 

 of ipecacuanha, caused no vomiting, so I doubled the dose a 

 few hours later and in two days the patient had recovered. 

 My next case was a very chronic one of two and a half years' 

 duration, in which the patient had lost over 50 lbs. in weight 

 and was at death's door, but the result was equally astonish- 

 ing and it was soon clear to me that a specific treatment 

 of a common and deadly disease had at length been found, and 

 one that I soon proved to be equally effective in the pre- 

 vention of tropical liver abscess. One curious point regarding 

 the history of ipecacuanha remains to be mentioned, namely 

 the introduction of the so-called ipecacuanha sine emetine, in 

 which an attempt was made to remove the specific alkaloids 

 and give only the sawdust. Naturally the more completely 

 the alkaloids were removed the less efficient was the result : 

 a good example of the danger of incomplete knowledge of 

 the composition and action of important drugs. I have dealt 

 at some length with the history of these two alkaloids because 

 they are the two most definitely specific remedies against very 

 common and fatal diseases of India, and they illustrate very 

 convincingly the point I wish to emphasise to-night, namely 

 the immense value of researches on pharmacology, and thera- 

 peutics Think what countless lives in Bengal alone have 

 been last through quinine and emetine, which were both dis- 

 covered nearly a century ago, not having been efficiently used 

 in the treatment of malarial fevers, amoebic dysentery, and 

 hepatitis respectively until the middle of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury in the case of quinine, and until 1912, 95 years after 

 its discovery, in the case of emetine. 



^ Are there not many other important indigenous drugs 

 which might well repay scientific study ? To take one example 

 which has been engaging my attention during the last seven 



