224  The  Pharmaceutical  Chemist.       { Am AJ°gr-  f£gm- 
some  measure  of  success  in  the  treatment  of  leprosy  in  India  and 
our  own  southern  states,  and  was  some  years  ago  the  subject  of 
extensive  chemical  investigation ;  oil  of  chenopodium  or  American 
wormseed,  used  first  as  an  ordinary  anthelmintic  and  more  recently 
as  a  highly  successful  agent  in  destroying  the  hookworm,  the  bane 
of  existence  to  so  many  thousands  of  people  in  warmer  climates; 
and  a  great  array  of  other  fixed  and  volatile  oils.  And  these  things 
suggest  at  once  a  multitude  of  gums  and  resins  of  more  or  less 
interest  medicinally,  but  which  we  will  pass  by. 
In  that  limitless  domain  to  which  we  refer  in  general  as  "organic 
chemistry,"  including  therein  those  things  particularly  connected 
with  physiological  and  biological  chemistry,  there  exists  a  tremendous 
number  of  substances  of  great  interest  to  the  pharmaceutical  chemist 
and  there  lie  before  him  untouched  fields  for  investigation  that 
almost  stagger  the  imagination.  In  this  category  appear  substances 
of  natural  origin  and  of  synthetic  production — the  alkaloids  of 
aconite,  opium,  belladonna,  stramonium,  ergot,  nux  vomica;  the 
comparatively  innocuous  glucosides  of  cascara  or  the  highly  toxic 
ones  from  strophanthus  and  digitalis;  the  digestive  ferments  such 
as  pepsin,  diastase,  pancreatin;  the  endocrine  glands  and  their 
derivatives,  such  as  the  suprarenal  whence  comes  adrenalin,  so 
marvelously  potent  in  its  effects  on  the  blood  pressure  that  one- 
twentieth  of  a  milligram  will  show  pronounced  effects  on  a  man; 
the  thyroid,  from  which  but  recently  an  active  iodine-bearing  sub- 
stance has  been  isolated ;  the  pituitary  gland  of  inestimable  value  in 
obstetrical  practice  and  in  the  treatment  of  surgical  shock;  and 
others  still  less  understood.  Then  we  have  that  formidable  and 
continually  increasing  array  of  synthetic  substances,  some  of  which, 
like  acetylsalicylic  acid  (aspirin),  or  acetphenetidin  (phanacetin) , 
are  part  of  the  equipment  of  almost  every  household  medicine  cabi- 
net, and  others  that  you  and  I  never  heard  of  and  probablv  never 
will. 
These  brief  citations  give  some  idea  of  the  infinite  variety  of 
work  presented  to  the  chemist  who  deals  with  medicinal  products 
but  do  not  give  any  adequate  conception  of  the  great  number  of 
unsolved  and  abstruse  problems  which  still  lie  before  us  and  to  which 
I  will  refer  presently.  You  can  at  least  see  that  the  chemical  knowl- 
edge of  the  man  who  has  to  do  with  pharmaceutical  problems  in 
their  fullness  must  be  extensive  and  that  he  will  certainly  have  no 
monotonous  existence. 
