222  The  Pharmaceutical  Chemist.       { AmA^ ' ?9%r,m- 
may  at  least  recognize  a  measure  of  justice  in  this  claim  and  have  a 
better  understanding  of  the  reasons  back  of  it. 
Pharmacy  has  to  do  with  the  compounding  and  dispensing  of 
medicinal  products  and  is  most  frequently  thought  of  in  the  very 
narrow  sense  of  mere  mixing  together  of  various  individual  sub- 
stances, or  the  extraction  of  drugs  with  the  proper  solvents  and 
dispensing  in  suitable  form  for  use,  the  whole  process  involving 
only  a  very  moderate  degree  of  chemical  knowledge. 
It  is  to  this  extremely  limited  scope  that  the  term  "  phar- 
maceutical chemistry"  is  all  too  frequently  confined.  I  wish  to 
direct  your  attention,  however,  to  pharmaceutical  chemistry  in  its 
broadest  sense  as  being  the  chemistry  of  medicinal  substances,  per- 
taining to  their  origin,  preparation,  dispensing,  and  effects,  and  the 
remarkable  and  varied  ramifications  of  these  subdivisions.  Far 
from  being  a  limited  and  somewhat  isolated  division  of  chemical 
science  there  is,  I  believe,  no  other  branch  of  chemistry  that  needs 
for  the  solution  of  its  diverse  problems  so  many  otherwise  distantly 
related  portions  of  chemical  knowledge. 
The  metallurgist,  who  from  the  iron  ore  of  northern  Michigan 
produces  by  reactions  in  blast  furnace  and  Bessemer  converter,  iron 
and  steel  of  varied  composition;  or  from  the  scarlet  cinnabar  of 
southern  California  wins  the  mercury  for  use  in  physical  instru- 
ments and  amalgams ;  or  from  the  ores  of  Missouri  obtains  in  giant 
smelters  the  zinc  for  innumerable  industrial  uses,  may  often  forget 
that  iron  is  intimately  associated  with  vital  processes,  as  in  the 
red  blood  corpuscles,  and  plays  an  important  role  as  a  curative  agent ; 
that  the  mercury  salts  are  used  in  combating  some  of  the  most 
deadly  and  insidious  diseases,  or  as  highly  effective  germicides  and 
antiseptics ;  that  the  zinc  in  one  form  may  be  intensely  escharotic 
and  in  another  may  be  the  basis  of  mild  and  healing  ointments  of 
wide  use. 
The  agricultural  chemist,  who  makes  two  blades  of  grass  or  ears 
of  wheat  grow  where  only  one  grew  before,  may  also  develop  digi- 
talis or  belladonna  or  hydrastis  or  cannabis  in  greater  abundance 
or  of  higher  potency. 
The  glass  chemist  may  have  his  skill  taxed  to  produce  ampoules 
of  glass  free  from  excess  alkali  and  easily  workable  in  a  blow-pipe 
flame  or  free  from  soluble  iron  salts  that  rapidly  decompose  such 
substances  as  hydrogen  peroxide  or  adrenalin. 
The  coal-tar  industry  contributes  from,  its  cruder  products  the 
