On the Connection between Chemical Constitution, and Physiological Action

Abstract

IN the address delivered by Dr. Brunton on this subject before the Section of Therapeutics and Pharmacology at the last meeting of the British Medical Association, a copy of which was published in NATURE, August 19, p. 375, he observes, in alluding to the adoption of more scientific methods in pharmacology:—“This may be said to have begun about twenty years ago, when the researches which my predecessor in this office, Dr. Fraser, made with Prof. Crum Brown upon the connection between physiological action and chemical constitution inaugurated a new era in pharmacology.... We might first date the beginning of this age from Blake's attempts to show that a connection exists between the forms in which the various bodies crystallise, and the mode in which they act on an animal body.... Nevertheless, I think we may fairly say that it was the experiments of Crum Brown and Fraser which fairly started pharmacology in the new direction in which it has since been steadily advancing.” Now it can, I think, be shown that in these remarks Dr. Brunton has not only misunderstood the scope of my experiments, but that he has been led into error on account of his having no definite idea of the meaning of the term chemical constitution, which he has evidently confounded with that of chemical composition. The same confusion of these terms is not only apparent all through the address, but is also found in the paper on the subject by himself and Dr. Cash, published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, 1884.