362 
Note  on  Antipyretics. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
July,  1888. 
very  much  cheaper  than  from  natural  sources ;  and  therefore  it  does 
not  offer  the  inducement  of  the  very  large  profits  offered  when  the 
natural  product  was  so  costly.  But  the  modern  research  in  this  direc- 
tion has  yielded  very  interesting  and  important  results,  in  addition  to 
the  still  increasing  list  of  substitutes  or  antipyretics. 
A  brief  notice  of  only  the  more  prominent  substances  of  this  list 
is  all  that  can  be  undertaken  here,  and  all  the  material  for  this  is 
compiled  from  a  few  of  the  numerous  authorities  on  this  subject. 
Nothing  original  is  offered,  and  nothing  as  being  very  accurate,  because 
every  article  of  the  list  is  put  forth  with  the  conflicting  statements  so 
apt  to  result  from  the  combined  influences  of  pecuniary  interests,  en- 
thusiasm, and  limited  observation  stimulated  by  the  universal  appe- 
tite for  novelties. 
Chinoline. — In  1842,  Gerhardt,  by  distilling  quinine  with  causti^ 
potassa  and  water,  discovered  a  base  which  he  called  quinoline,  but 
the  dearness  of  quinine  forbade  attempts  to  utilize  the  base  from  that 
source.  By  treating  cinchonine  in  the  same  way  he  obtained  another 
base  which  he  named  chinoline,  and  the  comparative  cheapness  of  cin- 
chonine encouraged  the  investigation  of  chinoline  and  its  salts.  These 
were  found  to  be  active  antipyretics,  and  the  base  was  used  through 
many  years  as  a  nucleus  from  which  various  chemical  substances  were 
built  up  of  varying  character  and  power  as  antipyretics  or  quinine 
substitutes. 
In  1880,  Dr.  W.  Konigs,  of  Munich,  gave  a  new  impetus  to  the 
researches  based  upon  chinoline,  by  making  this  in  quantity  syntheti- 
cally or  artificially  from  aniline.  He  was  soon  joined  by  Baeyer, 
Skraup,  and  others  in  a  new  order  of  investigations,  which  have  been 
very  fruitful,  and  are  still  in  active  progress. 
The  tartrate  of  chinoline  was  one  of  the  earliest  antipyretics,  and 
was  largely  used.  It  is  still  in  the  markets,  and  still  occasionally 
used,  but  has  given  place  to  more  recent  agents. 
Resoin  or  Resorcin. — About  1862,  Hlasiwetz  and  Barth,  following 
up  Gerhardt's  idea  of  1842,  distilled  certain  resins  with  alkalies  and 
water,  and  obtained  a  substance  which  they  called  resorcin,  because  it 
was  obtained  from  resin  and  was  similar  to  orcin  from  archil  or  orchil. 
Subsequently  Korner  prepared  resorcin  synthetically  by  building  it 
up  from  a  benzol  nucleus,  and  from  its  constitution  it  is  meta-dihy- 
droxylbenzol  and  belongs  to  the  phenols. 
