MEDICAMENTS AND LIFE. Ded 
the secret of the formation of those subtile principles, be- 
neficent or terrible according to their various natures, which 
sometimes restore endangered health, and sometimes quench 
the flame of life? It is true that attempts hitherto made 
in that direction have not been crowned with success ; at 
least medicine has gained no advantage from them. It 
was while following out experiments on the means of ob- 
taining quinine artificially, and while studying toluidine 
with this view, that Perkin, in 1856, discovered, instead 
of the precious medicine he was in search of, a red com- 
pound which became the source of aniline colors. This 
check, of so singular a kind, should not discourage inves- 
tigators; permanent fame is reserved for him who shall 
succeed where Perkin failed. 
We may be allowed to suppose, too, as A. W. Hoff- 
mann lately took occasion to say, that the same thing will 
take place in future in therapeutics that has occurred in 
the art of dyeing. At this day no one endeavors, as used 
to be done, to obtain different shades by the mechanical 
mixture of several coloring-matters. One principle is 
taken, and, according to the color desired, is subjected to 
a determinate chemical transformation; one and the same 
molecule, modified in its inner structure by suitable re- 
agents, becomes in succession red, blue, green, violet. 
One who watches attentively the influence of chemistry 
upon all manufactures, cannot doubt the realization of simi- 
lar progress in other directions; he will trust that thera- 
peutics will some day succeed in modifying, as it may 
choose, the properties of medicinal principles, not, as now, 
by means of mixtures in the druggist’s glass, but with the 
help of fixed and regulated metamorphoses, effected in the 
very inmost structure of the molecule of the active prin- 
ciple. Late experiments by Messrs. Crum-Brown and 
Fraser have made a brilliant beginning in researches of 
this kind, 
