August 5, 1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
113: 
watched, and their several likes and dislikes known, 
before the pharmacist can elaborate the various medica- 
menta in their most perfect forms. 
Those extraordinary glucosides, alkaloids and hydro¬ 
carbons that fill our shelves as truly point to the Divine 
originator of all, as do the mental and bodily powers of 
the man who measures and weighs, or the memory which 
gives him an experience whereby he can discriminate be¬ 
tween the good and the bad, or the useful from the useless. 
In short, it is Nature, the visible agent of a munificent 
Creator that we must obey, and on her we are entirely 
dependent either in the field or in the laboratory. The 
labours of Dumas, Liebig, Frankland, Richardson, Hof¬ 
mann, Odling, Williamson, Miller and a host of others, 
have brought to light by their experiments an array of 
facts so vast, that probably no one mind can grasp them 
all. We need only mention the compounds of ethyl, 
methyl and amyl, the chloral, pepsine and chloroform, 
to instantly call to mind what chemistry has done to 
alleviate the long list of “ ills that flesh is heir to.” 
Oxygen, in its ordinary condition, and without the 
aid of moisture and heat, could not destroy the pestilent 
gases and organisms that abound in our crowded streets 
and courts ; but, in its allotropic form, no sooner does it 
come in contact with the deadly impurities from our 
lungs and skin, or the emanations arising from our un¬ 
natural mode of living, than it immediately attacks the 
evil by destroying its very constitution, and prevents its 
poisonous influence on our health and comfort. 
Can it be right, therefore, that so many of us should 
be from day to day in the midst of the various ozone- 
producing agents and recommending their use, and yet 
all the while not caring to know the why and wherefore 
of their friendly reactions ? 
This remnant of the dark ages of our pharmaceutical 
existence I fervently hope is, or soon will be, a thing of 
the past, and that our successors will make a better use 
of the advantages that science oflers than their fore¬ 
runners have. 
To profitably carry on our businesses wo. must copy 
nature in all her operations. As in hers so in our own 
laboratories, nothing should be lost and nothing wasted. 
The pharmaceutist should strive as strictly to account 
for every atom or molecule in his transformations or sub¬ 
stitutions as for the £. s. d. in his cashbook. Like all 
other callings, our own has arrived at its present state 
by very slow degrees; its foundation was laid on the 1 
alchemy of the Arabians and the empiricism of the 
Greeks. Its superstructure was built up stratum super 
stratum by he persevering study and steady observa¬ 
tion of the inhabitants of Great Britain, France and 
Germany; while our American brethren have made a 
good start, and with their characteristic zeal have 
shown, by their various publications, a practical ac¬ 
quaintance with pharmaceutical operations. Let us, 
therefore, look after our laurels, and let it not be said 
by our children and theirs, that we have delayed our 
march on the high-road to knowledge. I cannot look 
around me at the present moment without the proud 
conviction that we have an earnest band of inquirers, 
who have met together at this our annual gathering for 
the purpose of receiving and imparting the results of 
their experience and observation. A ariety is a common 
natural ordinance, quite as much so in ourselves as in 
the flowers of the field. The cry of “ equality” which 
we sometimes hear, is a fatal delusion and the dream, of 
a lunatic. AVo each must humbly play our own peculiar 
part in one harmonious whole. JSon omnes omnia pos- 
sumus. 
Perhaps of all the discoveries which modern chemistry 
has introduced, the most marvellous are the methods ot 
analysis and synthesis of. the organic bases. It is true 
that wc cannot produce in our laboratories the root of 
the madder or valerian, the sugar-cane or the Tonquin 
bean, but we can manufacture alizarine, valerianic acid, 
sugar and coumarin. No more startling proof ot the 
advancement of synthetical chemistry can be adduced 
than the discovery alluded to by Air. Perkin at the last 
meeting of the British Association, in his paper on the 
artificial preparation of alizarine. 
AVho could have supposed that there was the least 
relationship between two such dissimilar bodies as cin¬ 
chona bark and gas tar; nay, more, that they should give 
rise to the same substance ? Yet so it seems to be. You 
are, of course, all aware that the cinchona barks contain, 
the alkaloids in combination with quinicacid (C-H 12 0 6 ), 
which is also found in the coffee, bilberry, holly, privet, 
oak, ash, elm and many other plants. 
Thirty-three years ago AVoskresensky, while experi¬ 
menting on quinic acid, found that when it underwent 
oxidation, a peculiar yellow crystalline substance was the- 
result, and to which he gave the namequinone (C 6 H 4 0 2 ). 
C ; H 12 0 6 4- 20 = C G II 4 0, + COo + 4H 2 0. 
Quitiic Acicl. Quinone. 
For many years the atomic constitution of quinone- 
remained a disputed question, till the researches of 
Graebe showed that it was a substitution product from 
benzol, in which two atoms of hydrogen were replaced, 
by two of oxygen. 
C f) H 6 + 3 0 = C 6 H 4 0 2 + H 2 0. 
Benzol. Quinone. 
In 1869 Messrs. Graebe and Liebermann found out 
that from a compound of anthracene and quinine, both 
of which are present in coal-tar, was formed anthra- 
quinonic acid, better known as alizarine. It is the first 
instance of a vegetable colouring matter being produced 
by artificial means. 
An equally strange discovery has been made by Air. 
Broughton, the Government quinologist, who has ex¬ 
tracted carbolic acid from the Andromeda leschenaultn , 
a plant growing freely on the Neilgherry Hills. It is 
said to be of far greater purity than that made from coal 
tar, but probably the cost of production will prevent its 
coming into general use. 
Since we last met, pharmaceutical chemistry has lost 
an able investigator by the lamented death of Augustus 
Alatthiessen, who, in conjunction with Alessrs. Foster 
and AVright, was making a very considerable addition to 
our knowledge of the constitution of the opium alkaloids.. 
For many years past these have been a complete puzzle, 
and never till now had we any light thrown, upon the 
reason why the poppy capsule should contain such a 
surprisingly long list of different principles. Happily 
the experiments on the substitution products, of morphia 
and codeia are being continued by Air. AY right, who is 
assiduously working out the subject. 
AYhen either of these bases is treated with hydro¬ 
chloric acid under pressure, an entirely new base Repro¬ 
duced, called by its discoverer apomorphia (C 17 II 17 N0 2 ), 
and although it only chemically differs from morphia by 
the abstraction of the elements of water, it has the most 
opposite properties. 
c ]7 h 19 no 3 - h 2 o 
Xviorpliia. 
C r II,-NOo. 
I* ‘i ,. - 
Apomorphia. 
Apomorphia is remarkable for its powerful emetic 
qualities and unstable nature. The. chloride, which is 
the salt most commonly used, is white and crystalline. 
Its freedom from all irritant properties ronders.it a valu¬ 
able hypodermic agent. Only -jjth.of a grain by the 
mouth or T \jth by subcutaneous injection acts with greater 
rapidity than any other. emetic; indeed, it. is the only 
one capable of being administered hypodermically. 
AATien Codeia is acted , upon under pressure by am 
excess of hydrochloric acid, a new base is separated, 
which the discoverers, Alessrs. Alatthiessen and W right,, 
called ehlorocodide (C 13 H. :0 N 0 2 ). 
C 1S H 21 N0 3 + II Cl 
Codeia. 
- c, 3 H.. 0 yo, 
Chlorocochue. 
+ H,o. 
