THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
THE  AMERICAN  SYNTHETIC  CHEMICAL  INDUSTRY. 
Born  of  necessity,  reared  with  much  difficulty,  and  just  reach- 
ing the  stage  where  its  knees  were  strong  enough  to  sustain  it, 
the  infant  American  Synthetic  Chemical  Industry  is  threatened  with 
an  affliction  which  may  lead  to  its  early  demise.  It  needs  no 
learned  prognostician  or  diagnostician  to  point  out  the  nature  of  the 
oncoming  ailment  or  to  realize  that  quick  means  need  be  taken  to  for- 
tify the  patient  against  the  attack. 
Before  the  onset  of  the  great  World  War  there  had  been 
poured  over  this  country  i  vast  avalanche  of  tar  synthetics,  most 
ot  them  designed  to  become  permanent  elements  in  the  physicians' 
armamentaria  for  fighting  disease.  Many  of  them  possessed  dis- 
tinct merit,  and  had  created  for  themselves  an  unquenchable  de- 
mand. The  majority  of  them,  however,  were  foisted  upon  the  cred- 
ulous doctor,  -for  the  good  doctor  has  well  earned  this  title,  and 
for  all  practical  purposes  were  merely  makeshifts  and  only  valuable 
as  providing  means  for  the  astute  German  to  unload  some  value- 
less by-products  of  tar  for  which  his  chemist  could  find  no  other 
avenue  of  sale. 
It  is  said  upon  good  authority  that  "once  upon  a  time"  a  certain 
German  firm  found  itself  hampered  with  a  fairly  large  consign- 
ment of  a  crystalline  coal  tar  compound  for  which  it  could  find  no 
earthly  use.  A  clear-visioned  and  not  too  scrupulous  chemist,  know- 
ing that  the  compound  was  relatively  harmless,  advised  packaging; 
the  article  in  to  gramme  units,  assigning  to  it  a  sonorous  chemico- 
therapeutic  name  and  sending  it  over  the  seas  to  cure  American 
migraines.    Accordingly  so  was  it  done  and  the  firm  was  promptly 
Vol.  93. 
October,  1921. 
No.  10. 
(665) 
