News
Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Tublishedbij thejlmertean
Edition
Cfhemieaiooeiety
JULY 20, 1927
Vol. 5, No. 14
one's profession and are therefore deductible for income tax purposes.
Detroit as a Drug Center
L.
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Grand Circus Park, Detroit
Historical Detroit The early French explorers of the New World visited the present site of Detroit as far back as 1670. In 1679 La Salle stopped there during his memorable journey through the interior of the new continent. N o permanent trading post or settlement was established, however, until 1701 when theSieur de la Mothe Cadillac built Fort Pontchartrain, and the fifty soldiers and fifty colonists who accompanied him settled down to a frontier life. This date marks the actual beginning of the present city. The fort became a contested point between England and France during the French and Indian War of 1755-63, and in 1760 it was captured by the British. While under the British flag, the fort on the " strait'' was the chief center of resistance to the repeated efforts of the confederated Indian tribes, under the leadership of the great chief Pontiac, t o drive the British from their posts on the Western frontier. In 17G3 it withstood a five months' siege. Throughout the War of Independence, Fort Pontchartrain, which had by this time become known as Detroit, was held by the British. It was nominally ceded to the United States by England in 1783, but was not finally abandoned until 1796, the evacuation of Fort Leiioult in that year being the last act of the War of Independence. A tablet on the city post office now marks the site of the old fort. In 1802 Detroit was incorporated as a town by the legislature of the Northwest Territory. With the exception of two buildings the town was completely destroyed b y fire in 1805, but was promptly rebuilt. In 1812 i t was surrendered to the British who evacuated it the following year. It was incorporated as a village in 1815 and as a city in 1824. From 1805 to 1837 it was the capital of Michigan Territory, and from then until 1847 the capital of the new State. After removal of the capital to Lansing, Detroit assumed increasing importance as a shipping port on the Great Lakes. I t was not, however, until the last two decades that its development as a great industrial center and its enormous increase in population attracted the attention of the entire nation Today "Dynamic Detroit" occupies fourth place among the country's great cities,
Convention Expenses Deductible from Income Tax Returns The Federal Board of Tax Appeals—Professor Alexander Silverman of the University of Pittsburgh heing the petitioner —has recently decided that traveling expenses incurred in attending scientific meetings are properly deductible as ordinary and necessary expenses in connection with the carrying on of
Detroit is logically a focus for industries depending on her natural deposits of salt but other reasons are responsible for its being the home of one of the largest establishments for the conversion of crude drugs and animal products into therapeutic agents of the highest importance in medicine. The whole world serves as the field from which drugs, such as coca leaves, opium, cinchona bark, cascara bark, strophanthus seed, resins, gums, and the endocrine or internal secreting glands are collected and made into powerful medicinal agents. Not only drugs of vegetable origin are prepared for the use of the physician but serums and antigens from the blood and tissue juices and vaccines containing live or dead bacteria or derived substances are prepared under U. S. Government supervision for the cure or prevention of infectious diseases and defective conditions. Adrenaline from the suprarenal glands of cows serves a purpose in constricting blood vessels to make a bloodless field for operations, in relaxing the bronchioles to relieve paroxysms of asthma, in stimulating the heart to carry it over a collapse and so restore its normal beating. Substances of equal importance are derived from the pancreas, pituitary gland, thyroid and parathyroid and thymus glands from the ovaries, the liver, and the lungs. Cocaine, both a curse and a boon to mankind, appears to differ entirely in its action from that of the leaves in their native state. These when chewed by the natives of Peru and Bolivia serve both as food and stimulant enabling men to perform feats of endurance beyond their natural ability. On the other hand, cinchona bark was known as a remedy for malaria centuries before research identified quinine as the active agent. Its toxic action on the malaria parasite has helped to make life in the tropics endurable by the white man. Chaulmoogra oil for leprosy, thymol for hookworm, digitalis for the heart are examples of the varied character of the remedies developed or improved in the research laboratories of the drug manufacturing firms. Indian Hemp, an almost sacred drug, probably the Nepenthe of fiction, was proved no more efficacious than the Hemp^plant grownin Kentucky which furnishes rope, bags, bird seed, and now one of the valuable hypnotics of medicine. No less important from some viewpoints are the disinfectants and insecticides so necessary in animal husbandry for dipping the animals to destroy bacteria and insects which otherwise would speedily lower the resistance and cause immense losses. Examples of these pests are horse, hog, and cattle lice, the sheep tick, Texas fever tick, and spotted fever tick. In many cases the insect is a carrier of infectious disease germs or low forms of animal life, one cycle of whose existence is in the insect's digestive tract as is the case with the two species of mosquitoes responsible for malarial and yellow fever. The most interesting feature from the scientific viewpoint is standardization by which uniformity is maintained, whether it be in the V200 grain strychnine tablet of which the active agent is known but almost infinitely small, or the Cannabis Sativa Extract, the activity of which can be measured only on the living animal. Like many of our country's great enterprises, Detroit's drug manufacturing industry, for which the city is justly famous, started from very humble beginnings. The two oldest and largest establishments had their inception in old-time drug stores such as were more or less common in small cities about the middle of the past century. In 1855 Frederick Stearns, who had served an apprenticeship in Buffalo and had subse-
T h e American Chemical Society meets in Detroit September 5- -12» Hotels Statler and Tuller are t h e headquarters.
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INDUSTRIAL
AND ENGINEERING
CHEMISTRY
News Edition
Frederick Stearns & C o m p a n y
quently become part owner of a successful drug store in t h a t city, came to Detroit and established himself as "a manufacturing and wholesale druggist; dealer in every variety of medical merchandise." His manufacturing facilities consisted of a back room some twelve feet square in the rear of his store and equipped with a cook stove and a few odds and e n d s of apparatus for small scale percolation and nitration. He was not only president, treasurer, general manager, and probably janitor, b u t also traveling salesman, and made trips into ttie state taking orders from retail druggists. The business prospered, however, and frequently moved to larger quarters, until a t the present time the house of Frederick Stearns a n d Company occupies a valuable tract of land on Jefferson Ave. with buildings containing ten acres of floor space and more t h a n one thousand employees. The drug store of Dr. Samuel P. Duffield on Woodward Ave. was t h e birthplace of Parke, Davis a n d Company. Duffield was a physician who had studied chemistry in Germany and saw possibilities in pharmaceutical manufacture. His equipm e n t in 1862 consisted of a still capable of t u r n i n g out two barrels of alcohol a day, an iron ammonia a p p a r a t u s , two ether stills, and a hydraulic hand press. F o u r years later he joined forces with Hervey C. Parke, and t h e following year George S. Davis was added t o t h e partnership. In 1871 the firm name became Parke, Davis and Company, which h a s remained to this day, although Parke died a number of years ago and Davis is a very old m a n no longer connected with the business. T h e company was incorporated in 1875 with paid in capital of $81,950; t h e present capitalization is $25,000,000. T h i s enormous growth represents, of course, efficient m a n a g e m e n t and strict adherence to sound principles, but the keynote of the company's success has been research. Space permits the m e r e s t mention of a few outstanding contributions of t h e company t o medicine a n d pharmacy—the introduction of new drugs discovered in remote parts of the world b y costly explorations—drugs t h a t have since been adopted by t h e U. S. Pharmacopeia, the standardization of drugs by chemical and biological assay, pioneer work in t h e field of biological and glandular t h e r a p y , and the development of some valuable synthetic drugs. T h e laboratories of Parke, Davis and Company cover six city blocks, in addition t o a model 700-acre farm for t h e preparation of biological products and branch factories in Canada, England, Australia, a n d Brazil. Other manufacturers of drugs and pharmaceuticals in Detroit have contributed t o the city's fame a s a drug manufacturing center, b u t for lack of space this discussion is limited to the two already mentioned because of their historic interest. Drugs and pharmaceuticals are also manufactured by Nelson, Baker and Company, F . F . Ingram, C. E- Jamieson & Co., G. O. Beem a n , The Kyal Company, and pharmaceutical machinery by A r t h u r Colton.
Golf T o u r n a m e n t a t Detroit Meeting A golf tournament will be held a t t h e Oakland Hills Golf a n d Country Club, Birmingham, Michigan, T h u r s d a y afternoon, September 8. All communications concerning the t o u r n a ment should be addressed t o the chairman of the Tournament Committee—Howard T . Graber, Digestive F e r m e n t s Company, Detroit. Oakland Hills Golf Club boasts of a beautiful a n d interesting golf course, a real test of your game. Here the National Open Championship was played in 1925. There are m a n y holes which afford numerous chances to use the wooden clubs. The short holes will test t h e accuracy of the iron shots. There will be numerous events. A special prize will be given to t h e contestant making t h e best low gross for eighteen holes and a useful remembrance to the runner up. Numerous smaller prizes will be distributed. Following the tournament a golf dinner will be held at t h e Club House. Players will be divided into flights according to their handicaps (either district or club handicap).
F o r m for Reply M r . Howard T . Graber, Digestive Ferments Co., Detroit, Mich. D e a r Sir: I hereby make entry for the Golf Tournament a t 2 p . M., September 8. Name Address My
Medal
Association is Golf
Club is
Handicap
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M y Medal Handicap in t h e (If you h a v e District
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disregard t h e Club handicap.)
T h e Brown Instrument C o m p a n y has established a midwestern repair and service station at 217 E. Illinois St., Chicago, 111. This station is in position t o furnish immediately charts, thermocouples, protecting tubes, extension leads, instruments of standard ranges, and instrument p a r t s from stock. Repair work will also be done a t t h i s service station.
Parke, Davis & C o m p a n y
