Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Dec,  1921. 
Plant  Constituents. 
865 
desired.  Then  it  occurred,  why  not  use  the  petals  of  a  white  flower 
to  get  this  yellow  something? 
The  elder  was  then  in  bloom.  These,  I  found,  turned  deep  yel- 
low with  ammonia  gas.  I  procured  fifty  pounds  of  elder  flowers, 
put  them  in  a  percolator,  made  a  tincture,  and  worked  it  by  means 
of  neutral  solvents  and  excluders,  to  rid  the  product  of  the  alcohol, 
chlorophyl  and  wax.  I  had  five  gallons  of  the  chlorophyl-free 
liquid,  and  said  to  Mr.  Miller,  who  was  assisting  me:  "Place  the 
jar  in  a  cold  situation  and  tomorrow  morning  I  shall  examine  it." 
Next  morning  I  tipped  the  jar  very  carefully,  and  all  down  the 
sides  were  little  white  concretions  about  the  size  of  pin  heads.  It 
was  the  thing  I  have  been  seeking  for  years. 
I  took  one  of  those  pin  heads  to  the  laboratory  and  dropped  it 
into  distilled  water  and  it  did  not  dissolve.  I  added  ammonia — be- 
hold! it  immediately  dissolved,  the  liquid  turning  deep  yellow.  It 
was  only  the  size  of  a  pin  head,  but  there  were  thousands  of  them. 
And  they  kept  increasing  in  size.  The  marvelous  phase  of  this  sub- 
ject is  I  got  eleven  ounces  (crude)  of  that  substance  out  of  that 
fifty  pounds  of  elder  flowers.  Before  that,  by  reason  of  faulty 
research,  I  could  not  get  a  grain  from  anything. 
The  first  thought  of  a  pharmacist  is  what  value  a  new  substance 
may  have  in  medicine.  Alas,  the  greater  part  of  my  work  has  been 
the  repeated  finding  of  something  that  had  no  value.  I  sent  some 
of  this  material  to  Professor  R.  Adams  Dutcher,  University  of  Min- 
nesota, requesting  that  he  make  a  physiological  examination  of  it. 
His  preliminary  report  was  to  the  effect  that,  according  to  a  prelimi- 
nary investigation,  it  has  no  physiological  action.  May  I  not  ask, 
should  a  peculiarity  of  action  be  expected  of  a  substance  pervading1 
plant  tissues  everywhere  ?  1 
In  this  cylinder  I  have  distilled  water,  and  I  propose  to  put 
into  the  water  a  small  amount  of  this  material.-  Note  that  it  set- 
tles to  the  bottom.  It  is  perfectly  insoluble.  One  grain  shaken  with 
a  gallon  of  water  apparently  disappears,  but  if  let  stand  until  the 
next  day,  behold,  it  is  all  at  the  bottom.  I  now  shake  the  mixture, 
and  pour  half  of  it  into  another  cylinder,  then  add  a  little  ammonia 
I I  had  vitamines  in  mind.  There  was  reason  to  hope  that  a  general  life 
supporter  of  plant  life,  serviceable  to  animals,  could  be  found  and  isolated — 
not  a  poison  of  energetic  action.  This  I  accept,  Dr.  Dutcher  demonstrated  as 
a  fallacy  in  the  direction  of  this  substance. 
