Proceedings of the Association of Economic Biologists ordinary meeting held at 2.30 p.m. on May 13th, 1927, in the Imperial College of Science ... : discussion on plant alkaloids.

  • Association of Economic Biologists. Meeting (1927 : London, England)
Date:
[1927?]
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Credit: Proceedings of the Association of Economic Biologists ordinary meeting held at 2.30 p.m. on May 13th, 1927, in the Imperial College of Science ... : discussion on plant alkaloids. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SJ' [From THE ANNALS OF APPLIED BIOLOGY, Vol. XIV, No. 4, November, 1927. [All rights reserved.'] PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION ECONOMIC BIOLOGISTS Ordinary meeting held at 2.30 p.m. on May 13th, 1927, in the Imperial College of Science. The President, Mr J. C. F. Fryer, M.A., in the Chair. DISCUSSION ON PLANT ALKALOIDS. I. “The Principal Plants yielding Alkaloids” by Lieut.-Colonel A. T. Gage, C.I.E., lately Director, Botanical Survey of India, and Superintendent, Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta. II. “The Biochemistry of the Alkaloids ” by Dr T. A. Henry, Director, The Wellcome Chemical Research Laboratories. III. “The Medical Aspects of the Alkaloids” by Dr J. Trevan, The Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories. IV. General Discussion—Mr Fryer, Dr Pethybridge, Mr Howes, Dr Henry, Dr Trevan. I. THE PRINCIPAL PLANTS YIELDING ALKALOIDS. By Lieut.-Colonel A. T. Gage, C.I.E., M.A., M.B., B.Sc. (Late Director, Botanical Survey of India, and Superintendent, Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta.) Major Chipp in his letter in which he conveyed his honourable invitation for me to take part in this alkaloidal symposium had the following remark: “We should not trespass on your time for more than twenty minutes.” In this there was an obvious transposition of the pronouns, for he should have written “You should not trespass on our time for more than twenty minutes.” Anyhow I hope I shall not much exceed that limit. Fortunately for you and me I am not called upon to say anything about alkaloids themselves. I am merely the showman pointing to the pictures with more or less appropriate patter, to whet your appetite for the real performance, when Drs Henry and Trevan put their trained troupe of alkaloids through their paces. I may just confide in you my personal impression of the rarity of alkaloids in their unadorned beauty. We consume incredible quantities of tea, coffee and tobacco, but how many of us have ever seen Caffeine or Nicotine. For half of every year for many years I lived amidst miles of Tea and Cinchona plants, but only on one occasion have I been introduced to Caffeine and Quinine, when the Government Quinologist showed me two phials, one of which, he said, contained Caffeine from tea-prunings and the other Quinine. I inspected them with the reverential care they seemed to call for and handed them back to him. Since then I have seen no other. As within the time at our disposal only a limited number of the regiment of alkaloid-yielding plants can be inspected, the selection of those to file past leaves