864 
Plant  Constituents. 
5  Am.  Jour.  Pharm 
\      Dec,  1921. 
therapeutic  agents  developed  by  members  of  this  section.  It  may 
not  be  improper  for  me  to  add  that  our  dominating  ideal  is  that  of 
service  of  humanity — service  to  anybody  and  everybody  needing  our 
help — yes,  service  to  those  who  not  only  ignore  us  but  too  often  seek 
to  paralyze  our  efforts.  The  historian  who  studies  the  records  of 
the  past  will  discover  that  our  aim  has  been  to  aid  not  only  our  as- 
sociates, but  those  who  consider  it  proper  to  become  our- enemies.  I 
stand  as  one  who  believes  himself  by  age  and  experience  to  be  com- 
petent to  balance  problems,  that  in  the  passing  along,  where  whilst  pas- 
sion prevailed,  it  was  impossible  to  balance.  I  have  learned  to  bear 
no  personal  animosity  against  any  man  who  looks  at  a  subject  dif- 
ferently than  myself.  I  have  resisted  what  I  thought  to  be  wrong,  but 
with  no  evil  intent,  for  I  have  never  hated  any  one.  Long  since  have 
I  divorced  personalities  from  issues." 
The  next  day  one  of  the  party  met  us  and  said :  "Lloyd,  do  you 
know  what  impressed  me  most  of  all  in  your  remarks  ?  It  was  that 
policy  of  advocating  an  issue  and  forgetting  the  man — the  principle 
of  not  making  a  personal  antagonist  of  the  party  on  the  other 
side." 
Let  me  now  introduce  the  subject  that  I  came  before  you  to  dis- 
cuss. I  have  here  something  to  show  you,  in  the  light  before  me  to- 
day, but  I  crave  the  privilege  of  changing  my  opinion  if  future 
events  lead  to  a  reversed  view. 
For  thirty  or  forty  years  in  the  experiments  I  have  made  with 
drugs,  plants  and  plant  structures,  I  have  met  continuously  the 
fact  that  linked  with  each  plant  texture  there  was  something  present 
that  under  the  influence  of  an  alkali  gave  a  yellow  color.  For  exam- 
ple, strip  a  pawpaw  of  its  bark  and  touch  the  white  inner  surface  with 
a  solution  of  potash — now  it  turns  yellow.  There  is  probably  one 
rule  in  this  as  elsewhere,  and  that  is  the  rule  of  exceptions.  I  hope 
to  find  one  white  blossom  that  will  not  turn  yellow.  If  I  do,  the 
exception  may  be  of  help  to  the  botanist,  for  it  may  be  the  forerun- 
ner of  a  class  distinction. 
For  years  this  yellow  phenomenon  was  before  me,  but  I  could 
not  catch  the  material  that  produced  it.  About  a  year  and  a  half 
ago  I  decided  that  if  I  isolated  this  yellow  something  that  pervaded  all 
plant  tissues  so  linked  with  impurities  as  seemingly  to  defy  isolation, 
it  must  be  obtained  from  something  that  is  white,  something  that  does 
not  carry  a  mass  of  extraneous  material  to  contaminate  the  principle 
