]]'ood  Alcohol  Ah  Longer. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1     December,  1920, 
prov^ed;  products  and  processes  have  been  elaborated  and  improved; 
practice  in  the  accurate  reporting  of  results  of  chemical  work  has 
been  attained  by  the  members;  mutual  understanding  has  resulted 
from  the  personal  contact  and  discussion  at  the  meetings,  and 
"esprit-de-corps"  has  been  furthered. 
The  chief  purpose  of  this  communication  is  to  bring  to  the  atten- 
tion of  Pharmaceutical  plant  operators  the  idea  of  conducting  a 
Chemical  Society  in  connection  with  the  plant  and  to  point  out 
the  benefits  to  be  derived  thereform. 
The  general  plan  of  the  establishment,  aims  and  purposes  and 
conductance  of  a  Pharmaceutical  Chemical  Society,  as  outlined  above, 
is  entirely  amenable  to  improvement  and  further  development.  It 
is  not  offered  as  rigid  and  unalterable  but  can  be  rearranged,  ab- 
stracted from  or  added  to  to  meet  the  demands  or  desires  of  any 
particular  plant. 
Pharmaceutical  Research  Laboratory, 
H.  K.  Mulford  Company, 
Philadelphia,  Pa. 
WOOD  ALCOHOL  NO  LONGER:  HEREAFTER  METHANOL.* 
By  Charles  Baskerville, 
COLLEGE  OF  the  city  OF  NEW  YORK,  NEW  YORK,   N.  Y. 
Wood  (methyl)  alcohol  poisoning  is  an  unique  problem  in  that  it 
involves  not  alone  physiological  changes  and  technical  matters  hav- 
ing to  do  with  production  and  distribution  of  the  toxic  agent,  but 
sociological  factors  as  well. 
The  "adiophorous"  spirit  obtained  by  distilling  wood  (Boyle, 
1661)  was  thought  by  Taylor  (1812)  to  be  a  new  kind  of  ether;  in 
fact,  he  called  it  "pyroligneous  aether."  Dumas  and  Peligot  (1835) 
established  its  resemblance  to  ethyl  {ether)  alcohol  and  named  it 
methyl  alcohol  from  the  Greek  ^xeBv  mead  and  v\r]  wood.  In  fact 
it  may  be  recalled  that  the  word  alcohol,  derived  from  the  Arabic, 
Al  Kohl,  Sit  one  time  meant  a  fine  powder  and  only  later  meant 
spirits. 
Commercially  the  destructive  distillation  of  hard  woods  (refuse) 
is  the  main  practical  method  followed  for  the  production  of  methyl 
*  Presented  at  the  59th  Meeting  of  the  American  Chemical  Society,  St. 
Louis,  Mo.,  April  12  to  16,  1920.  Reprinted  from  the  Journal  of  Industrial 
ef  Engineering  Chemistry,  September. 
