COLLEGE OP PHARMACY OF PARIS. 
157 
could be attacked directly with some chance of success, 
and that in the actual state of science, it is not impossible 
to accomplish the direct formation of the sulphate of 
quinia. They have therefore resolved to make an appeal 
to chemists on this subject, in the hope that it will be duly 
responded to. 
A few years since it would have been thought an act of 
temerity to demand of chemists a process by which to pro- 
duce, directly from inorganic elements, a substance which 
is a product only of organic life. But, in her progressive 
march, science has discovered that certain substances, 
which are ordinarily the products of living tissues, may be 
formed directly and independently of these. 
Thus urea, to cite a common example, it is universally 
admitted, may be produced, with carbon, hydrogen, oxy- 
gen and nitrogen'; and the time is not far distant, it is 
thought, when the general problem shall be solved, and 
any organic compound of known composition can be repro- 
duced from the inorganic elements which compose it, either 
by imitating a synthetic process of nature, as yet unknown, 
or by the employment of means which the chemist 
already employs, as for instance in the preparation of arti- 
ficial urea. 
As regards the organic alkalies, a great number are 
already known, and among these are many which are ex- 
clusively artificial products. 
The various modes of preparing this species of com- 
pounds, are so well understood, that it is as easy to obtain 
a new alkaloid as to prepare an acid, alcohol or ether. 
Many organic alkalies besides that of the urine, have 
been artificially obtained, and it is not the first time 
that chemists have published the opinion, that the alka- 
loids of cinchona and opium could be prepared arti- 
ficially. MM. Dumas, Gerhardt, Kopp and others, have 
heretofore expressed such an expectation. By the re- 
markable work of M. Wurtz, the existence of a great 
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