THE 
AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
JANUARY,    1  8  62. 
RESEARCHES  ON  THE  MOLECULAR  DISSYMMETRY  OF  NATURAL 
ORGANIC  PRODUCTS.  By  L.  Pasteur,  Member  of  the  Chemical 
Society  of  Paris.  Presented  to  the  Chemical  Society  of  Paris,  January  20 
and  February  3,  1860.  Translated  from  "  Legons  de  Chimie  profes- 
sees  en  I860."    By  W.  S.  W.  Ruschenberger,  M.  D.,  U.  S.  Navy. 
INTRODUCTION. 
These  lectures  were  prepared  on  the  invitation  of  the  Council  of  the 
Chemical  Society  of  Paris.  The  researches  of  which  they  present  a  rapid 
summary  have  occupied  me  during  ten  consecutive  years.  I  had  often 
thought  of  collecting  them,  of  minutely  reviewing  the  details,  and  adding 
to  them  all  the  developments  necessary  to  the  co-ordination  of  the  differ- 
ent memoirs  in  which  they  appeared  for  the  first  time.  But  there  is  in 
the  life  of  every  man  devoted  to  the  experimental  sciences  an  age  when 
the  value  of  time  is  inestimable :  this  rapid  age,  in  which  the  spirit  of 
invention  flourishes,  in  which  every  year  ought  to  be  marked  by  an  ad- 
vance. To  stop,  then,  voluntarily  at  things  acquired,  is  a  restraint  and  a 
danger,  which  the  pleasure  and  even  utility  of  seeing  our  ideas  expand 
in  accordance  with  our  desires  too  well  compensate. 
As  much  as  I  have  recoiled  before  the  laborious  task  of  collecting, 
of  perfecting  my  researches  on  the  molecular  dissymmetry  of  natural  or- 
ganic products,  in  the  same  degree  I  have  yielded  eagerly  to  the  prayer 
of  many  members  of  the  Chemical  Society,  to  publish  the  two  lectures  in 
which  I  was  charged  to  set  forth  the  principal  results  at  which  I  had  ar- 
rived. Few  studies  have  been  better  received  at  the  time  of  their  suc- 
cessive appearance,  and,  nevertheless,  I  have  many  proofs  that  they  were 
scarcely  known. 
I  hope,  then,  that  this  publication  maybe  of  some  use.  But  should  there 
be  nothing  beyond  the  interest  which  these  lectures  have  excited  in  the 
distinguished  assembly  before  which  they  were  delivered,  I  shall  be  suffi- 
ciently recompensed  for  my  labors. 
1 
