WYNDHAM ROWLAND DUNSTAN

1861-1949

S ir W yndham R owland D unstan, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., died on 20 April 1949, at the ripe age of eighty-seven, after twenty-five years of retirement from active work. He was born at Chester on 24 May 1861 and was the elder of the two sons of John Dunstan and Catherine, Potter, who was the daughter of P. Cipriani Potter, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music from 1832 to 1859. John Dunstan was an officer of Chester Castle from 1822 to 1865, first as Constable and later as Constable and Governor. The castle was built by Hugh Lupus, the first Earl of Chester and a nephew of William the Conqueror. Between 1789 and 1813 the area was cleared of the ruins of this Norman building, except for Caesar’s Tower and a round tower with adjacent buildings, and the site used for the erection of a barracks, county hall, assize court and gaol, and it was this assemblage of modern and ancient buildings, for which the Constable and Governor was responsible. John Dunstan’s second son was M. J. R. Dunstan, who became Principal of the South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye, and later of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester.

Wyndham Dunstan was educated at Bedford School and seems not to have followed any formal course of education after leaving school and before being appointed in 1879 assistant to Theophilus Redwood, then Professor of Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy of the Pharmaceutical Society, London. Later this post was divided, Redwood retaining the lectures on theoretical chemistry and Professor John Attfield becoming responsible for the laboratories of practical chemistry, in which Dunstan acted as demonstrator, having as a colleague Dr Alfred Senier, who, after some years under Hofmann in Berlin, became Professor of Chemistry at Galway University. In 1884 Dunstan was appointed a demon­strator in the University Chemical Laboratories at Oxford and a year later became University Lecturer in chemistry in relation to medicine. In 1886 he succeeded Redwood as Professor of Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy and in 1887 became Director of the new research laboratories, which he was largely instrumental in persuading the Pharmaceutical Society to found. This was one of the earliest laboratories in this country devoted solely to research. Dunstan soon became recognized as an authority on pharmaceutical chemistry and in 1892 he was appointed lecturer in chemistry at the Medical School of St Thomas’s Hospital. With the exception of this last post, which he retained until 1900, he gave up teaching when he accepted the invitation to become Director of the Scientific and Technical Department of the Imperial Institute

63

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Wyndham Rowland Duns tan 65and his lecture experiments were so carefully prepared in advance that they rarely, if ever, failed. He was popular with his students and a surprisingly large proportion of them became his research associates, though research then was not lavishly endowed as it is to-day and the rewards to research workers were, when they occurred at all, of the kind politely described as honoraria. He had a thoroughly practical bent of mind and this was greatly to his advantage in the later period of his life when he had to become the man of affairs rather than the academic research worker in order to cope successfully with the work of the Imperial Institute. To this task he brought clear insight, great driving power and a remarkable capacity for persuasion, and when difficulties cropped up he was usually ready with a solution and no less ready to make a stand for its adoption if necessary.

Dunstan’s scientific work was nearly all done with collaborators. Pharmacy has from time to time proved a useful recruiting ground for chemists and, though the classes at the School of Pharmacy were relatively small, Dunstan was fortunate in being able to select a number of men who became his loyal and efficient research associates. They included E. F. Harrison and H. A. D. Jowett, both now deceased, who later gained distinction in other fields of chemical activity, and others who joined Dunstan’s staff on his transfer to the Imperial Institute and whose work with him is referred to later. This work falls naturally into two sections, scientific and technical. The former was mainly started in the Pharmaceutical Society’s Research Laboratory and after 1896 continued and extended at the Imperial Institute and is concerned chiefly with the investigation of drugs and poisonous plants. As explained later the develop­ment of the Scientific and Technical Department of the Imperial Institute into a centre for the examination of Colonial and Indian products with a view to their industrial utilization was so rapid and successful that purely technical work of this kind had to be given priority over scientific research of a more fundamental character, such as had been done at first on the components of natural products. As a result his association with contributions to purely scientific journals virtually ceased after 1913, though members of the staff were still able to carry on some scientific research and publish the results, when this procedure was necessary for the technical utilization of such products as drugs and essential oils.

When Dunstan joined Redwood in 1879 the latter, with Mr Warrington of Apothecaries Hall, was responsible for the preparation of the British copoeia, under the direction of a Committee of the General Medical Council. The current edition of this work was the second, viz. that of 1874, which was the fourth reprint of the 1867 edition with additions. That was in the days before the spate of synthetic remedies started and the monographs in the volume belonged to three main groups: natural drugs and some active principles of these, galenical preparations and organic or inorganic salts. Standards were set for ether-soluble alkaloids in cinchona bark and for morphine in opium and simple assay processes were prescribed for these items. A beginning had there­fore been made in the important matter of the standardization of natural drugs,

but there was still much to be done. There were, for example, no standards or assay processes for such potent drugs as nux vomica, belladonna, aconite, colchicum or ergot, and the monograph on aconitine merely describes the preparation of an amorphous residue of the ether-soluble alkaloids of aconite root. The desire to remedy this state of things was undoubtedly the incentive behind most of the early research work undertaken by Dunstan and his associates. Thus the papers on nux vomica with F. W. Short are concerned with methods for estimating the total alkaloids in the drug and eventually a process for the quantitative separation of strychnine and brucine and estimation of the former was evolved. This made it possible to manufacture standardized galenical preparations of this drug. In the course of the work on nux vomica a glucoside, loganin, was isolated from the fruit pulp of Strychnos nux , whichcuriously enough never seems to have been further investigated.

The paper on the action of polyhydric alcohols on borax arose out of the need to know what happened in making the pharmacopoeial preparation ‘glycerin of borax’, which was shown to contain sodium metaborate and glyceryl borate with some boric acid resulting from hydrolysis of the second constituent. Similarly the papers on the estimation of alkaloids in solanaceous drugs, such as belladonna, arose from the desire to have these drugs and their galenical preparations standardized and the work on Scopola carniolica was due to the appearance of the rhizomes of this plant on the London drug market as a possible substitute for belladonna. The comprehensive series of papers dealing with the chemical constituents, botany, pharmacognosy, pharmacy and thera­peutic action of this drug, illustrates Dunstan’s interest in seeing that if a new product were likely to be of practical use, all the scientific and technical data essential to its commercial utilization were provided. The work on alkyl nitrites was started in 1888 and in his introduction to this group of papers he says ‘A highly impure solution of ethyl nitrite has long been employed as a medicinal agent, and a solution of this kind ( Spiritusaetheris nitrosi) is still included in the British Pharmacopoeia. Since it is almost certain that any therapeutical action which this liquid may exert is principally, if not entirely, due to the ethyl nitrite it contains, there seems to be no reason why the impure solution should not now be advantageously replaced by a solution of the pure ethyl nitrite of known strength, thus placing at the disposal of the physician a remedy from which a constant effect may be expected.’ The British Pharmacopoeia referred to is that published in 1885. It also included a monograph on amyl nitrite prepared by the action of nitric or nitrous acid on the fraction of crude amyl alcohol boiling between 128° and 132° C. Dunstan & Woolley, after examining commercial specimens of amyl nitrite, concluded that ‘the amyl nitrite at present used in medicine is thus shown to be a complex mixture in variable proportions of several nitrites, alcohols and their oxidation products’. In order to improve on this state of things pure specimens of eleven alkyl nitrites from methyl to a-, fi- and tert-amyl nitrites were prepared and some interesting chemical observations were made on the reactions involved. The physiological action of the nitrites was studied in detail by J. T. Cash, Professor

66 Obituary Notices

of Materia Medica in the University of Aberdeen. The chief conclusions arrived at were as follows:

The action of the nitrites is not solely, or even mainly in some cases, due to the amount of nitroxyl (N 0 2) they contain. In all phases of their activity the secondary and tertiary nitrites are more potent than the corresponding primary isomerides, due to their greater ease of hydrolysis into the alcohols and nitrous acid.

The action in acceleration of the pulse, in reduction of blood pressure and in induction of muscular contraction increases with molecular weight throughout the series. This order results from the decreasing stability of the nitrites as the series is ascended. In respect of the duration of the induced sub-normal pressure and of the speed of onset of muscular contraction the order is for the most part reversed and it is suggested that this reversal is due to the simpler nitrites attaching themselves more readily to certain constituents of blood and muscle and so acting more quickly whilst their greater stability ensures longer duration of action. In the body a large proportion of an organic nitrite is changed into nitrate and is excreted in the urine as an alkali nitrate.

This was one of the earliest examples of joint work by chemists and pharmaco­logists in the preparation and investigation of a homologous series of chemical compounds.

In investigating methods of producing ethyl nitrite Dunstan & Dymond obtained a quantity of nitroethane and observed that this substance reacted with concentrated aqueous solutions of alkali carbonates or hydroxides forming acetonitrile, nitrous acid and a new substance C6H 9ON. The reactions of the latter resembled those of ‘benzilam’, the constitution of which had been estab­lished by Japp as 2:4:5-triphenyloxazole and of which the new compound might be the trimethyl analogue. The latter was synthesized and proved not to be identical. It was then realized that the points in which the new substance differed from the two oxazoles could be accounted for by a change in the relative positions of the oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the oxazole ring from 1 and 3 to 1 and 2. Substances of this type had been obtained by Claisen & Lowman, notably the 3-phenyl-5-methyl derivative, by the dehydration of the oxime of benzoylacetone and which was named phenylmethylmonazole to be subsequently altered to 3-phenyl-5-methylAooxazole. Dunstan & Dymond therefore synthesized 3:4:5-trimethylwooxazole by dehydrating the oxime of methylacetylacetone and this proved to be identical with the product obtained from nitroethane. Later Dunstan & Goulding provided an ingenious but complicated explanation of the formation of acetonitrile and trimethyksooxazole by the action of alkalis on nitroethane, which involved a peculiar dehydration by one molecule of water from three molecules of sodium nitroethane, giving rise to the sodium derivative of acetaldoxime, two molecules of sodium nitrite and two CH3-C residues thus:

O3CH3-CH:N-ONa---- ^CH3 C H :N 0 N a+ 2 N aN 0 2+ H 204-2C H 3-C.

Wyndham Rowland Dunstan 67

The sodium derivative of acetaldoxime thus formed dissociates in water and the oxime, in the tautomeric form, joins up with the CH3C residues to form trimethylwooxazoline, which in presence of unaltered sodium nitroethane is oxidized to trimethylwooxazole and acetaldoxime, which by dehydration yields acetonitrile. With nitromethane an wooxazole is not formed, the chief product being methazonic acid, C2H 40 3N2, first prepared and so named by Lecco in 1876. The characters and a series of reactions of this substance were described by Dunstan & Goulding and apparently mainly on the ground that it is hydrolyzed, following internal oxidation, into carbon dioxide, hydroxylamine and hydrocyanic acid, they suggested for it the formula

H2C---- NH

OHON:C-----O

but in the following year Scholl pointed out that methazonic acid could be regarded as a nitrogen analogue of acetoacetic acid and its formula written as CH2:NOCH:NOOH and in 1907 Meister, on the basis of a new series of reactions, discussed two possible formulae, N 0 2-CH2CH:N0H and OH-NO:CH-CH:NOH (/3-fsonitroacetaldoxime).

In the course of this work it was necessary to prepare considerable quantities of acetaldoxime. Though two forms of benzaldoxime had been known for some time and had been the subject of much investigation, this was the first occasion on which it had been possible by experimental isolation to show that an oxime of an aliphatic aldehyde could exist in two interconvertible modifications, viz. acetaldoxime, of which Dunstan & Dymond described two forms, one having m.p. 46-5° C. and the other a liquid which could be converted completely into the first form but could not be obtained entirely free from it; it was pointed out that the two forms seemed to correspond in their principal properties with the anti- and syn- forms of benzaldoxime respectively, though decisive experimental evidence on this point could not be obtained. Propionaldoxime and wobutal- doxime were also examined, with results indicating that each of these existed in two forms.

In the first two of a series of papers on the action of alkyl halides on hydroxyl­amine, and on aldoximes and ketoximes, Dunstan & Goulding showed that when methyl iodide is added to a solution of hydroxylamine in methyl alcohol, dihydroxylamine hydriodide (NH2OH)2,HI, trihydroxylamine hydriodide (NH2OH)3,HI, and trimethylhydroxylamine hydriodide (CH3)3NO,HI, later called trimethyloxamine, or trimethylamine oxide hydriodide, are formed. With ethyl iodide /3-diethylhydroxylamine hydriodide was obtained, and by further action of the halide, triethyloxamine hydriodide, whilst propyl and wopropyl iodides gave rise to dipropyl- and diwopropyl-hydroxylamines respec­tively. Evidence was provided to show that the trimethyl compound had the constitution (CH3)3NO and was not a true hydroxylamine derivative,

68 Obituary Notices

(CH3)2N*OCH3, but that on further action of methyl iodide it furnished a tetramethyl compound represented as trimethylmethoxyammonium iodide, (CH3)3N(OCH3)I. These were the first examples of the class of compounds now known as amine oxides. Apart from their chemical importance they are also of some biological interest in view of the occurrence of physostigmine oxide (geneserine) in Calabar bean and of trimethylamine oxide in cephalopods. Dunstan & Goulding also prepared the same two oxamines by the oxidation of trimethylamine and triethylamine with hydrogen peroxide and by this means they also converted tripropylamine to the amine oxide and diethylamine and dipropylamine into the corresponding /3-dialkyl hydroxylamines, (Alk)2N-OH, but dimethylamine was only slowly attacked by hydrogen peroxide producing formaldehyde, formic and nitrous acids, but no /3-dimethylhydroxylamine. In extension of this work the same authors investigated the action of alkyl halides on a series of aldoximes and ketoximes, alone, or in presence of sodium methoxide in methyl alcohol, and found that in the absence of alkali the alkyl group attached itself to the nitrogen atom and only alkylAooximes were formed, but in presence of alkali, two products were obtained, viz. alkylwooximes and the isomeric ethers or alkyloximes. These compounds were represented thus:

Wyndham Rowland Dunstan 69

R-CH-NH R-CH-NR' R2C------N R '

O O O

AoAldoxime AlkylAoaldoxime Alkylwoket oxime

R C H :N O H R C H :N O R ' R2C :N O R '

Aldoxime Alkylaldoxime Alkylketoxime

The alkyl fsooximes, for which other formulae are now accepted, on hydrolysis furnished the corresponding aldehyde or ketone and a /3-alkylhydroxylamine NH(Alk)-OH. On reduction in acid media the alkylhydroxylamine first formed was converted into the corresponding alkylamine, but on reduction with sodium amalgam in ethyl alcohol hydrolysis was avoided and the corresponding secondary amine was formed, e.g. methylAopropylamine from methylwo- acetoxime

(CH3)2C-----N CH3— k c h 3)2 c h -n h c h 3\ /

o

The isomeric oxime ethers proved more stable and were isolated in the free state as liquids. On hydrolysis they yielded the corresponding aldehyde or ketone and an a-alkylhydroxylamine NH2-OAlk.

Dunstan’s other investigations were mainly on plant products of which the most important was that on the aconite alkaloids. After some preliminary trouble

over the empirical formula, C33H450 12N, for aconitine, which was adopted by Wright and by Jurgens and confirmed by Dunstan & Ince, but was altered later to C34H47On N, as suggested by Freund & Beck, it was clearly established that aconitine was acetylbenzoylaconine. Attention was then directed to certain of the Asiatic aconites of which pseudaconitine, derived from Nepaul aconite, was examined by Dunstan & F. H. Carr, who confirmed Wright & Luff’s formula, C36H490 12N, for the alkaloid and showed that the latter was acetyl- veratroyl/>se«</aconine, /wwJaconine, C25H390 8N, being similar in type to aconine, C25H410 9N, and both resembling atisine, C22H310 2N, derived from A. heterophyllum, in being relatively non-toxic, in comparison with the extremely poisonous ester alkaloids, aconitine and ^>sew^aconitine. About this time the Indian aconite species were under botanical investigation by Dr George Watt (later Sir George Watt) then Reporter on Economic Products to the Government of India, and the two aconite species referred to above were supplied by him. He also provided supplies of two other Indian aconites examined bjr Dunstan & Andrews and which were shown to contain the following new alkaloids, all of the poisonous diacyl ester type:

70 Obituary Notices

A. chasmanthum, Stapf. Indaconitine (acetylbenzoylpsew^aconine). A. spicatum, Stapf. Bikhaconitine (acetylveratroylbikhaconine).

Japanese aconite, on which several chemists had worked previously, was examined by Dunstan & Read, who assigned to the chief alkaloid, japaconitine, the formula C34H49On N, and showed that it was hydrolyzed to acetic and benzoic acids and a new base of the aconine type, named japaconine, C25H430 9N. It will be seen that japaconitine and aconitine may well be isomerides and some authorities regard them as identical, but Dunstan & Read’s careful comparison of the two alkaloids and of their derivatives makes a good case for regarding them as different. All these aconitines and their hydrolytic products and certain of their derivatives, were examined pharmacologically by Professor Cash, who provided some interesting observations on the effects induced by the slight changes in acyl groups characterizing this type of alkaloid.

Among other work undertaken about this time was a comparison by Dunstan and the present writer of the constituents of American and Indian podophyllum, derived respectively from Podophyllum peltatum and P. emodi. It was shown that the rhizomes of either species could be used for the preparation of the resinous extract podophyllin, which is the form in which the drug is used in medicine; the active principles were shown to be the crystalline lactone, podophyllotoxin and an amorphous product, podophyllo-resin. A comparison of the podophyllin from each species and an examination of the two active principles was made by Drs Mackenzie and Dixon at St Thomas’s Hospital, who found that the Indian resin was more active than the American and in smaller doses was a satisfactory substitute for it. They also made the interesting observation that both podophyllotoxin and podophyllo-resin are laxatives in small doses but only the second exerts a true cholagogue effect.

Another Indian drug examined for the first time with H. Brown in 1899 was

Wyndham Rowland Dunstan y ithe now well-known Hyoscyamus muticus, which proved to have the advantage over other solanaceous drugs of containing hyoscyamine without hyoscine. As imported from Egypt it became a standard raw material for the manufacture of atropine.

Work on cyanogenetic glucosides was started with the present writer as a result of inquiries made by various authorities in Egypt to Sir W. Thistleton Dyer, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, regarding the toxic properties of Lotus arabicus, a plant which, when mature, is used as fodder for cattle, but which in the earlier stages of its growth is apt to be poisonous. Preliminary experiments with a specimen of the ground unripe plant showed that when left in water it produced prussic acid, and when worked up in the usual manner for plant glycosides, a small amount of crystalline material was obtained which was duly described as the cyanogenetic glycoside, ,C28H 3i0 16N, yielding on hydrolysis by acids the yellow pigment lotoflavin, Ci 5H i0O 6, two molecules of dextrose and a molecule of prussic acid. Natural glycosides are often difficult to isolate and in the case of cyanogenetic glycosides there is the additional trouble that the quantity present appears to be dependent on cultural conditions, hot, dry weather being favourable to their production. In a recent investigation of Lotus arabicus two new constituents were isolated, viz. a well-defined pigment glycoside, C22H240 11, and lotaustralin, which is a glycoside of the cyanohydrin of methyl ethyl ketone, first isolated by Finnemore, Cooper & Stanley from the related plant Lotus australis var. pubescens. Only a small fraction of the prussic acid yielding capacity of the sample was represented by the lotaustralin isolated and lotusin may be present in the residues, but none was isolated in this preliminary investigation. Another cyanogenetic plant examined was sorghum, which in its early stages and in dry seasons has long been known to be poisonous. It was found to contain dhurrin, a glycoside of the cyanohydrin of />-hydroxybenzaldehyde. The most interesting and the most widespread of the glycosides isolated in these researches was phaseolunatin, which proved easier to deal with because it could be obtained in reasonable quantity from the dark brown or purple coloured beans of lunatus,grown as a green manure in Java and Mauritius. There are two other cultural varieties of P. lunatus seeds, viz. Rangoon or Burma beans, which are pale pink with red spots and yield only traces of prussic acid and Lima beans, which are large and white, resemble haricot beans and yield either no prussic acid or only just detectable amounts. Phaseolunatin was subsequently found in bitter cassava (tapioca plant) and the linamarin, isolated by Jorissen & Hairs from flax, was shown to be identical with phaseolunatin.

The second or technical section of Dunstan’s work concerns the realization of the main objectives with which the Imperial Institute was founded. In September 1886 the Prince of Wales, later King Edward the Seventh, appointed an Organizing Committee to determine the character and scope of operations of an Imperial Institute intended to commemorate the fiftieth year (1887) of Queen Victoria’s reign. The scheme which resulted included ‘the utilization of the commercial and industrial resources of the Colonies and India and other

1parts of the Empire, by providing comprehensive collections of their natural products and of such products of other nations, and collecting full scientific, practical and commercial information relating thereto’. It also specified that the Institute would, among other things, ‘afford accommodation for comparing and examining samples by the resources of modern science’. These three purposes involved the formation of a permanent exhibition of Indian and colonial raw materials, the dissemination of essential technical information regarding such products, and the installation of laboratories for the investigation of those, about which further scientific and technical information was needed. Sir Frederick Abel was a member of this Organizing Committee and was appointed Organizing Director and Secretary of the Institute. He regarded these three functions as interdependent and logically operative from one centre, the Imperial Institute in London, though it was realized that the work would come mainly from the less developed units of the Empire, since the Dominions, for example, had technical departments already doing work of this kind for themselves.

The Institute building was formally opened by Queen Victoria in 1893, by which time much progress had been made in installing collections of the natural products of the Empire in the Exhibition Galleries and it was possible to begin giving attention to arrangements for the investigation of new or little known Indian and colonial products. The Institute was severely handicapped for funds and an experimental section could not be started at once, but, fortun­ately, Sir Frederick Abel found it possible to induce a number of well-known men of science to accept a kind of honorary official relationship to the Institute and to agree to investigate in their laboratories materials supplied by the Institute and to provide reports on the results. In this way the examination by mechanical tests of several series of timbers was undertaken by Professor W. C. Unwin, the chemical investigation of Indian food-grains by Professor A. H. Church and of new fibres by Messrs Cross & Bevan. The now well-known researches on the components of Indian natural dyestuffs by Professor A. G. Perkin and of their tinctorial properties by Professor J. J. Hummel, also resulted from this arrangement, which was continued and extended to include help from commercial and industrial experts, either individually, or as specially constituted Advisory Technical Committees, and this became an essential part of the normal procedure in investigations, undertaken by the Scientific and Technical Depart­ment, as fully established on Dunstan’s assumption of the Directorship of this department in 1896.

The financial and other difficulties incidental to the initiation of this depart­ment and the means by which they were overcome, thanks largely to the generous help of the Commissioners of the 1851 Exhibition, the Goldsmiths’ Company, the Salters’ Company and other donors, are described in the preface, which Sir Frederick Abel contributed to the volume of Technical Reports and Scientific Papers edited by Dunstan and issued by the Institute in 1903. This covers the first six years of the department’s operations, including some of the scientific work referred to above. The technical reports deal with one hundred and sixty

72 Obituary Notices

subjects, covering materials from twenty-eight British Dominions and Colonies and ten foreign countries, the samples from the latter being provided by British Consuls in virtue of an arrangement with the Board of Trade and the Foreign Office. These reports range over a great variety of products: they include, for example, a reprint of a paper on ‘The coal resources of India and their develop­ment’, read by Dunstan to the Royal Society of Arts in 1902. It gives nearly 250 analyses, by M r G. S. Blake, principal mineral analyst in the department, of coals from all the more important coal-fields then in operation in India. The section on fibres begins with a description of the methods then recently devised by Messrs Cross & Bevan for the investigation of these materials, with suggestions for the interpretation of results, and includes a number of reports bearing on the possibility of improving the preparation of jute. There are also reports by Dr A. W. Crossley and M r Le Sueur of work done in the Chemical Laboratory of St Thomas’s Hospital on an extensive series of vegetable oils collected in India by Sir George Watt. The section on timbers records results of mechanical tests carried out under the supervision of Professor Unwin and also reports by M r Herbert Stone or M r Allan Ransome, on working qualities designed to pick out timbers suitable for export.

After 1903 technical reports were published quarterly in the Bulletin of the Imperial Institute, but in the period 1909-1914 a second series of collected reports, with Dunstan as responsible editor, was issued in the Miscellaneous Series of Colonial Reports. They dealt with fibres, gums and resins, foodstuffs, rubber and gutta-percha and oil-seeds, oils, fats and waxes. To this period also belong the ‘Report on British cotton cultivation’, published in the same series, and the prior ‘Report to the Board of Trade on cotton cultivation in the British Empire and Egypt’, issued in 1904, both arising out of the fears of a shortage of raw cotton and the need to augment supplies from within the Empire, a subject on which the Institute did much work both in the examination of samples and in the supply of technical information.

These reports show a steady development in methods of testing and examining these raw materials and in the provision of equipment for this purpose, so that much more of the technical work could now be done in the Institute’s own laboratories. They are also still convenient sources of information on colonial products. According to a Times report of a discussion on Colonial Research in the House of Lords on 19 July 1949, mention was made of rubber seed as a promising source of oil. In this connexion it is interesting to note that the collected reports on oil-seeds, oils, etc., referred to above, give the results of detailed investigations carried on at intervals from 1903 to 1913 on Para rubber seed and the oil and oil-cake made from the seed kernels.

Work on mineral resources received special attention as the result of the operation of Mineral Surveys under Dunstan’s general supervision and con­ducted by geologists selected by him. Such surveys, which may be regarded as forerunners of the Geological Surveys now in progress in many colonies, were instituted from 1903 to 1914 in Ceylon, Northern Nigeria, Southern Nigeria and Nyasaland and the minerals collected by the surveyors on each annual tour

Wyndham Rowland Dunstan 73

were sent to the Imperial Institute for mineralological examination and analysis. Among interesting results of these operations may be mentioned the discovery of thorium-bearing minerals, including the new mineral thorianite in Ceylon by Dr Coomaraswamy and the location of deposits of lignite and of coal in Southern Nigeria by Mr A. E. (later Sir Albert) Kitson and of iron ore in Northern Nigeria by Dr J. D. Falconer, who later became Director of the Geological Survey of Nigeria and published a valuable monograph on ‘The geology and geography of Northern Nigeria’.

As the work of the Institute became better known requests for technical information regarding colonial products increased and on the outbreak of the First World War became so numerous that it was necessary to start an intelli­gence section (Technical Information Bureau) of the Scientific and Technical Department to deal with them. Its duty was to read and index in convenient form, literature likely to be useful in the work of the Institute and the statement on its operations published in 1923 shows that it had by then become a useful and serviceable repository of information and capable of dealing promptly and effectively with a surprisingly wide range of technical inquiries. The duty of disseminating information regarding the natural resources of the Empire was also met by the inclusion in each number of the quarterly Bulletin of the Imperial Institute of articles and notes dealing with these subjects and by three series of publications issued by Mr John Murray:

The Imperial Institute series of Handbooks to the commercial resources of the tropics, edited by Dunstan and of which four volumes were issued, viz. ‘The agricultural and forest products of British West Africa’, by G. C. Dudgeon; ‘Cocoa; its cultivation and preparation’, by H. Johnson; ‘Rubber: its sources, cultivation and preparation’, by Harold Brown; and ‘Cotton and other vegetable fibres: their production and utilization’, by E. Goulding.

‘The Imperial Institute monographs on mineral resources with special reference to the British Empire’, prepared under the Direction of the Mineral Resources Committee. Fifteen of these were published. Each deals with one set of minerals, e.g. tin ores by G. M. Davies and manganese ores by A. H. Curtis.

A series of reports on Indian commodities, such as rice, oil-seeds, lac, turpentine and rosin, etc., resulted from the Indian Trade Enquiry authorized by the Secretary of State for India in 1916.

The third objective of the founders, viz. the Colonial and Indian Collections in the Exhibition Galleries, also received special attention during the twenty years of Dunstan’s directorship. His first innovation was the appointment of an expert botanical staff with Mr W. G. Freeman and Dr S. E. Chandler as Technical Superintendents. The Collections were from the first arranged on a geographical basis, each unit of the Empire having a section of its own, and the first task of the new staff was to reorganize each section in turn to make it an object lesson of the current condition of the country represented, the raw materials exported by the country, or used in its industries, furnishing the nucleus of each collective exhibit. Maps, statistical diagrams, photographs and models were freely used as aids to a clear understanding of the social, industrial

74 Obituary Notices

and economic state of each country. Special care was given to the preparation of explanatory labels for exhibits and separate descriptive catalogues of the collections of a number of colonies were published.

Arrangements were also made for conducting organized parties from schools, institutions and societies round the Collections and for this service a guide- lecturer was appointed in 1915, no doubt in furtherance of the objects of the Sudeley Committee of which Dunstan was honorary treasurer and secretary. In 1922 the total attendance was 153,000, including 5,000 pupils from 180 schools. Apart from their purpose of displaying to the general public the natural resources of the Empire and of providing samples and answering inquiries about them, the Collections were proving an attractive means of teaching the younger generation the commercial geography of the Empire.

In a ‘Report on the operations of the Imperial Institute’ published in the Bulletin of the Imperial Institute for 1923, Dunstan described the detailed organization of these activities as follows:

‘The work as actually carried out is in the hands of groups of skilled workers, who do not deal with all raw materials, but are constituted into groups of specialists in given materials, such as drugs, tanning materials, fibres, timbers, minerals, etc., there being different officers at work on each different group of materials, and engaged not merely in the laboratory, but in the study of the production of such materials throughout the world and of their principal uses.

‘Such work, if properly organized and restricted to the main purpose in view, is well within the compass of a staff of moderate dimensions and leaves open a large field for further investigations and research from the more purely scientific standpoint.’

The inception of the Imperial Institute was a public spirited and interesting experiment on the scientific side of the development of colonial resources and this last report by Dunstan on its operations leaves no doubt that the Institute was already well on the way to the accomplishment of the difficult task of fulfilling the functions prescribed by its founders.

All this, it must be remembered, took place thirty to fifty years ago and is to be regarded as a pioneering effort to the great development of Colonial Technical Services, including the Imperial Institute, which has taken place in recent years. The success of the pioneering experiment was due to the vision and organizing ability of the Director carried into practical achievement by the Departmental Superintendents and their skilled staff of botanists, chemists and mineralogists.

The writer is indebted to his former colleague Dr S. E. Chandler for help in the preparation of this notice.

Wyndham Rowland Dunstan 75

T. A. H enry

76 Obituary Notices

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1888. Formation of alkaloids in plants. Pharm. [iii], 18, 716.1888. (With T. S. D y m o n d .) The preparation of pure ethyl nitrite. Pharm. J . [iii],

18, 861.1888. (With Miss L. E. B oole.) Chemical observations on tartar emetic. Pharm. J. [iii],

19, 385.1888. The chemical formulae of solid and liquid bodies. Pharm. J. [iii], 19, 444, 504.1888. Contributions to the chemistry and pharmacology of the nitrites of the paraffin

series. Pharm. J. [iii], 19, 485. II. (With E. J. W oolley.) On tsobutyl nitrite. Ibid. p. 487. III. (With W. L loyd W illiam s.) The metameric amyl nitrites. Ibid. p. 487. IV. (With E. J. W oolley.) The chemical constituents of the amyl nitrite used in medicine. Ibid. p. 489.

1889. (With T. S. D y m o n d .) An apparatus for the estimation of nitrites. Pharm. J. [iii],19,741.

1889. The so-called Mussoenda coffee of Reunion. Pharm. J. [iii], 20, 381.1889. On Scopola carniolica. Pharm.J. [iii], 20, 461.1889. (With A. E. C haston .) The chemical constituents of Scopola carniolica. Pharm.

J. [iii], 20, 461.1890. The occurrence of scatole in the vegetable kingdom. Proc. Roy. Soc. 46, 211.1890. (With T. S. D y m o n d .) On an apparatus for the distillation of mercury. Phil. Mag.

29, 367.1890. (With T. S. D ym o n d .) An investigation of the conditions under which hydrogen

peroxide is formed from ether. J. Chem. Soc. 57, 574, 988.1890. Double cyanide of zinc and mercury. Pharm. J . [iii], 20, 653.1890. Explosion during preparation of amyl nitrite. Pharm. J. [iii], 20, 888.1890. (With O. F. C. B loch .) An investigation of the constituents of the artificial

salicylic acid of commerce. Pharm. J. [iii], 21, 429.1891. (With W. H. Ince .) The crystalline alkaloid of Aconitum napellus. J. Chem. Soc.

59, 271.1891. (With T. S. D y m o n d .) The action of alkalis on the nitro-compounds of the

paraffin series. Formation of isoxazoles. J. Chem. Soc. 59, 410.1892. (With J. C. U m ney .) The alkaloids of true Aconitum napellus. J. Chem. Soc.

61, 385.1892. (With F. W. P assmore.) The formation and properties of aconine and its conver­

sion into aconitine. J. Chem. Soc. 61, 395.1892. (With T. S. D y m o n d .) The existence of two isomeric oximes of acetaldehyde.

J. Chem. Soc. 61, 470.1892. Mercuric zinc cyanide: a study of the formation and properties of an insoluble

double salt. J.Chem. Soc. 61, 666, correction; Proc. Chem. Soc. (1908), 24, 135.1892. (With T. S. D ym o n d .) A laboratory shaker. Pharm. J. [iii], 20, 730.1893. (With W. F. J. S hepheard.) The identity of caffeine and theine and the reactions

of caffeine with auric chloride. J. Chem. Soc. 63, 195.1893. (With E. F. H arrison.) Isaconitine. J.Chem. Soc. 63, 443.1893. (With F. H. C arr.) The composition of some commercial specimens of aconitine.

J. Chem. Soc. 63, 491.1893. (With F. H. C arr.) Conversion of aconitine into isaconitine. J. Chem. Soc.

63,991.1893. (With H . A. D . Jowett.) Some modifications of aconitine aurichloride. J.

Chem. Soc. 63, 994.1893. (With C. M . L uxmoore.) The properties of a-benzaldoxime and some of its

derivatives. Proc. Chem. Soc. 9, 253.1893. The alkaloids of Aconitum napellus. (Lecture.) Pharm. J. [iii], 23, 765.

Wyndham Rowland Dunstan 77

1893. (With J. T. Cash.) The physiological action of the nitrites of the paraffin seriesconsidered in connexion with their chemical constitution. Phil. Trans. B, 184, 505.

1894. (With E. F. H arrison.) Picraconitine. J.Chem. Soc. 65, 174.1894. (With F. H. Carr.) The effect of heat on aconitine. Formation of pyraconitine.

J. Chem. Soc. 65, 176.1894. (With T. S. D ymond.) The isomerism of the paraffinic aldoximes. J. Chem. Soc.

65, 206.1894. (With F. H. Carr.) Further observations on the conversion of aconitine into

isaconitine and on the hydrolysis of aconitine. J. Chem. Soc. 65, 290.1894. (With H. A. D. Jowett.) The action of methyl iodide and of iodine on aconitine.

Proc. Chem. Soc. 10, 96.1894. The nature of aconitine. (Lecture.) Pharm.J. [iii], 24, 773.1894. Aconitine. Ber. dtsch. chem. Ges. 27, 664.1895. (With Miss L. E. Boole.) An inquiry into the nature of the vesicating constituent

of croton oil. Proc. Roy. Soc. 58, 238.1895. (With H. G arnett.) The constituents of Piper ovatum. J. Chem. Soc. 67, 94.1895. (With H. G arnett.) The active constituent of the pellitory of medicine. J. Chem.

Soc. 67, 100.1895. (With F. H. Carr.) Constitution of aconitine. Ber. dtsch. chem. Ges. 28, 1379.1895. (With F. H. Carr.) Acetyl derivatives of benzaconine and aconitine. J. Chem.

Soc. 67, 459.1895. (With H. A. D. Jowett.) Aconitine aurichlorides. Proc. Chem. Soc. 11, 27.1895. (With F. H. Carr.) Note on piperovatine. Proc. Chem. Soc. 11, 177.1895. (With F. H. Carr.) Note on dibenzaconine and tetracetylaconine. Proc. Chem.

Soc. 11, 178.1896. (With E. G oulding.) The hydriodides of hydroxylamine. J. Chem. Soc.

69, 839.1896. (With F. H. Carr.) Note on a difficulty encountered in the determination of

nitrogen by the absolute method. Proc. Chem. Soc. 12, 48.1896. (With T. T ickle & D. H. Jackson.) The action of methyl alcohol on aconitine:

formation of methylbenzaconine. Proc. Chem. Soc. 12, 159.1896. (With T . T ickle.) Estimation of aconitine. Pharm. J. [iv], 2, 121.1896- (With F. H. Carr.) Detection of aconitine. Pharm. J. [iv], 2, 122.1897- (With F. H. Carr.) Contributions to our knowledge of the aconite alkaloids.

XIV. On pseudaconitine. J.Chem. Soc. 71, 350.1897- (With E. G oulding.) Action of alkyl haloids on aldoximes and ketoximes. J.

Chem. Soc. 71, 573.1898- (With J. T. Cash.) The pharmacology of aconitine, diacetylaconitine, benzaconine

and aconine considered in relation to their chemical constitution. Phil. Trans. B, 190, 239.

1898- (With T. A. H enry.) A chemical investigation of the constituents of Indian and American podophyllum {Podophyllum emodi and Podophyllum peltatum). jf. Chem. Soc. 73, 209.

1898* (With T. A. H enry.) The volatile constituents of the wood of Goupia tomentosa. J. Chem. Soc. 73, 226.

1898- (With A. L. Bossi.) The preparation and properties of formaldoxime. J. Chem. Soc. 73, 353.

1898- (With T. A. H enry.) On oxycannabin from Indian hemp. Proc. Chem. Soc. 14, 44.1899- (With T. A. H enry.) Occurrence of orthohydroxyacetophenone in the volatile oil

of Chione glabra, y. Chem. Soc. 75, 66.1899- (With H. Brown.) Occurrence of hyoscyamine in the Hyoscyamus muticus of

India, y. Chem. Soc. 75, 72.1899- (With E. G oulding.) The action of alkyl haloids on hydroxylamine. Formation

of substituted hydroxylamines and oxamines. y. Chem. Soc. 75, 792.

78 Obituary Notices

1899. (With E. G o ulding .) The action of hydrogen peroxide on secondary and tertiaryaliphatic amines. Formation of alkylated hydroxylamines and oxamines. J.

Chem. Soc. 75, 1004.1900. (With H. M. R ead.) Contributions to our knowledge of the aconite alkaloids.

XV. On japaconitine and the alkaloids of Japanese aconite. Chem. Soc. 77, 45.1900. (With E. G o ulding .) Action of alkalis on the nitro-compounds of the paraffin

series. II. Reactions and constitution of methazonic acid and the mode of formation of isoxazoles. J. Chem. Soc. 77, 1262.

1901. (With T. A. H enry .) The nature and origin of the poison of Lotus arabicus. Phil.Trans. B, 194, 515.

1901. (With H. B ro w n .) The alkaloid of Hyoscyamus muticus and of Datura stramonium grown in Egypt. J. Chem. Soc. 79, 71.

1901. (With E. G o ulding .) The action of alkyl haloids on aldoximes and ketoximes.II. Alkylated oximes and Aooximes and the constitution of aliphatic oximes. J Chem. Soc. 79, 628.

1901. (With E. G o ulding .) The supposed existence of two isomeric triethyloxamines.J Chem. Soc. 79, 641.

1902. (With J. T. C ash .) The pharmacology of pseudaconitine and japaconitine con­sidered in relation to that of aconitine. Phil. Trans. 195, 39.

1902. (With J. T. C ash .) The pharmacology of pyraconitine and methylbenzaconine considered in relation to their chemical constitution. Phil. Trans. B, 195, 97.

1902. (With T. A. H enry .) Cyanogenesis in plants. II. The great millet, Sorghumvulgare. Phil. Trans. A, 199, 399.

1903. (With T. A. H enry .) Cyanogenesis in plants. III. Phaseolunatin, the cyanogeneticglucoside of Phaseolus lunatus. Proc. Roy. Soc. 72, 285.

1903. The chemical reactions involved in the rusting of iron. Proc. Chem. Soc. 19, 150.1904. Occurrence of thorium in Ceylon. Nature, 69, 510.1904. (With H. H. R o bin so n .) Official tests for arsenic. Pharm. J. [iv], 19, 381, 405,

426, 448.1905. (With G. S. B lake.) Thorianite, a new mineral from Ceylon. Proc. Roy. Soc. A ,

76, 253.1905. (With J. T. C ash .) The pharmacology of indaconitine and bikhaconitine. Proc.

Roy. Soc. B, 76, 468.1905. (With H. A. D. Jowett & E. G o ulding .) The rusting of iron. J. Chem. Soc. 93,

1548.1905. (With A. E. Andrews.) Contributions to our knowledge of the aconite alkaloids.

XVI. Indaconitine, the alkaloid of Aconitum chasmanthum. J. Chem. Soc. 87, 1620.

1905. (With A. E. Andrews.) Contributions to our knowledge of the aconite alkaloids.XVII. Bikhaconitine, the alkaloid of Aconitum spicatum. J. Chem. Soc. 87, 1636.

1905. (With T. A. H enry .) Contributions to our knowledge of the aconite alkaloids.XVIII. The aconitine group of alkaloids. Chem. Soc. 87, 1650.

1906. (With B. M. Jones.) A variety of thorianite from Galle, Ceylon. Proc. Roy. Soc. A,77, 546.

1906. (With T. A. H enry & S. J. M. A u ld .) Cyanogenesis in plants. IV. Occurrence of phaseolunatin in common flax. Proc. Roy. Soc. B, 78, 145.

1906. (With T. A. H enry & S. J. M. A u ld .) Cyanogenesis in plants. V. Occurrence of phaseolunatin in cassava. Proc. Roy. Soc. B, 78, 152.

1906. (With T. A. H enry .) The chemical aspects of cyanogenesis. Brit. Ass. Rep. 76,145.

1907. (With T. A. H enry & S. J. M. A uld .) Cyanogenesis in plants. VI. Phaseolunatinand associated enzymes in flax, cassava and the ‘Lima bean’. Proc. Roy. Soc. B, 79, 315.

1907. (With T. A. H enry .) The cyanogenetic glucoside of flax (linseed). Bull. Acad. roy. Belg. p. 790.

Wyndham Rowland Dunstan 79

8o1907.1907.

1911.

1911.

1903.1904.

1905.

1904.

1905.

1905.

1908.

1908.

1909.1910. 1912. 1914.

Obituary NoticesThe rusting of iron. Proc. Chem. Soc. 23, 68.Note on the constituents of the seeds of the Para rubber tree ( brasiliensis).

Proc. Chem. Soc. 23, 168.(With J. R. H ill.) The aerial oxidation (rusting) of metals. J. Chem. Soc. 99,

1835.(With J. R. H ill.) The passivity of iron and certain other metals. J. Chem. Soc.

99, 1853.Official Reports

Technical reports and scientific papers, Imperial Institute, London.Report to the Board of Trade on cotton cultivation in the British Empire and in

Egypt [Cd. 2020].Report to the Board of Trade on the work of the Imperial Institute.

Colonial Reports—Annual SeriesAnnual reports on the work of the Imperial Institute, 1906 to 1914.

Colonial Reports—Miscellaneous SeriesReport on a series of mineral and vegetable products from Northern Nigeria

[Cd. 1939].Report on cotton, gum and other economic products from Northern Nigeria

[Cd. 2778].Report on the agricultural resources of Cyprus with special reference to cotton

cultivation [Cd. 2717].British cotton cultivation. Reports on the quality of cotton grown in British

possessions [Cd. 3997].Report on agriculture in Asia Minor, with special reference to cotton cultivation

[Cd. 4324].

Selected reports from the Scientific and Technical Department of the Imperial Institute

Part I. Fibres [Cd. 4588]. Part II. Gums and resins [Cd. 4971]. Part III. Foodstuffs [Cd. 5137].Part IV. Rubber and gutta-percha [Cd. 6022].Part V. Oil-seeds, oils, fats and waxes [Cd. 7260].

Ceylon

Mineral Surveys. Reports on the operations of the mineral surveys in the territories named

1903- 1904 [Cd. 23.41]. 1905-1906 [Cd. 3762].1904- 1905 [Cd. 3190]. 1906-1908 [Cd. 5390]; [Cd. 7175].

Northern Nigeria1904- 1905 [Cd. 2875]; [Cd. 3914]. 1906-1907 [Cd. 4719].1905- 1906 [Cd. 3915]. 1907-1909 [Cd. 5899].

Southern Nigeria1903-1905 [Cd. 2876].1905- 1906 [Cd. 4994].1906- 1907 [Cd. 4995].1907- 1908 [Cd. 5517].1908- 1909 [Cd. 5901].

Nyasaland1906-1907 [Cd. 3916].

1910 [Cd. 6425].1911 [Cd. 7067].1912 [Cd. 7110].1913 [Cd. 7567].

1907-1908 [Cd. 4908]. 1908-1909 [Cd. 5900].

Wyndham Rowland Dunstan 81

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1888. T. L auder B runton & T. J. B okenham . Note on the effect of amyl nitrite.Pharm. J . [iii], 19, 491, 492.

1889. F. R ansom . The pharmacy of Scopola carniolica. Jacq. Pharm. [iii], 20, 464. 1889. S ir D yce D uckworth . Observations on the therapeutic action of Scopola

carniolica. Pharm. J. [iii], 20, 466.1889. E. M. H olmes. The natural history of Scopola carniolica. Pharm.J. [iii], 20, 468.1889. T. G reenish . The histological characters of the rhizome of Scopola carniolica

compared with those of the root of Atropa belladonna. Pharm. J. [iii], 20, 471.1890. M. C harteris. The physiological action of the artificial salicylic acid of commerce.

Pharm. J . [iii], 21, 436.1891. A. E. T u tto n . The crystallographical characters of aconitine from Aconitum

napellus. J . Chem. Soc. 59, 288.1896. C. M. L uxmoore. The oximes of benzaldehyde and their derivatives. J.

Soc. 69, 177.1896. H. A. D. Jowett. Atisine, the alkaloid of Aconitum heterophyllum. J . Chem. Soc.

69, 1518.1898. H. W. G. M ackenzie & W. E. D ixon . The physiological action and therapeutic

properties of podophyllin and its constituents, with special reference to Indian podophyllin. Edin. Med. J. n.s. 4, 393.

1908. J. T . C ash . An experim ental inquiry into the relationship o f action to dose, especially w ith reference to repeated adm inistration o f indaconitine. Med.

J• W, 1213.

F