Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
July,  1920.  j 
The  Use  of  Drugs  in  Disease. 
451 
their  counters.  The  same  identical  radicals  are  found  in  them  as 
are  found  in  the  store  stock.  Your  bodies'  cells  have  been  licensed 
by  nature,  after  a  proper  training  in  the  nature  of  drugs,  to  put  up 
the  claim  that  within  their  membrane  walls  "Prescriptions  are  Care- 
fully Compounded."  Within  their  walls  they  are  constantly  at 
work  filtering,  precipitating,  dissolving,  macerating,  digesting, 
percolating,  oxidizing,  reducing,  and  hydrolyzing.  An  inventory 
of  the  kinds  of  goods  they  carry — not  ready  made,  however,  but  as 
chemical  radicals — would  be  astonishingly  like  those  found  in  a 
Jersey  pharmacy.  There  are  in  the  cells  of  a  normal  human  body 
material  radicals  for  the  production,  on  demand,  of  some  very  potent 
compounds  but  all  so  cared  for  as  to  be  quite  harmless.  Let  us,  for 
a  moment,  look  over  part  of  the  list  as  it  occurs  to  us  at  first  thought. 
There  is  phosphorus,  phosphoric  acid  and  phosphates;  iron,  iron 
oxides,  sulphides,  sulphates  and  carbonates;  sulphur,  sulphides, 
sulphates,  sulphites,  sulphurous  acid,  sulphuric  acid,  and  sulphuretted 
hydrogen;  ammonia,  ammonium  carbonates,  sulphides,  sulphates, 
sulphites  and  phosphates;  nitric  and  nitrous  acids  with  a  host  of 
nitrogen  salts,  t.  n.  t.,  nitroglycerin  and  dynamite;  hydrocyanic 
acid,  cyanogen,  cyanates  and  cyanides;  iodine,  iodides,  iodates, 
and  thyroidine;  arsenic  acid,  arsenic,  arseniates  and  arsenides; 
formaldehyde,  formic  acid,  formates  and  many  polymers  of  for- 
maldehyde; glycerine  and  a  host  of  different  kinds  of  tryglycerides ; 
hydrochloric  acid,  chlorine  and  a  multitude  of  chlorides;  calcium, 
calcium  chlorides,  carbonates,  sulphates,  sulphides,  and  a  multitude 
of  organic  calcium  compounds;  unnumbered  substances  carrying 
the  benzol  ring;  fluorine,  hydrofluoric  acid,  and  fluorides;  alcohol, 
acetone,  acetaldehyde,  acetic  acid,  and  acetates  of  many  kinds; 
citric  acid  and  citrates,  oxalic  acid  and  oxalates,  oleic  acid  and 
oleates ;  potassium  and  its  salts ;  sodium  and  its  salts ;  silicic  acid  and 
silicates;  copper  and  its  salts;  manganese  and  its  salts;  etc.  In 
amido -valerianic  acid  there  is  the  radical  for  production  of  valerianic 
acid  and  valerianates.  The  nucleic  acid  contains  the  raw  materials 
of  phosphorus,  phosphoric  acid  and  phosphates,  hydrocyanic  acid 
and  cyanides,  as  well  as  of  glucosides.  The  proteins  hold  in  their 
structures  three  amino  acids  that  contain  the  benzol  nucleus,  namely 
phenyl-alanin,  tyrosin  and  tryptophane.  These  are  the  mother  sub- 
stances of  carbolic  acid,  benzoic  acid,  salicylic  acid,  benzaldehyde, 
aniline  and  numerous  aromatic  substances  that  perfume  our  drug 
stores,  to  say  nothing  of  malodorous  skatol  and  indol.    These  three 
