John Jacob Abel the position of chair of the department until he retired at the age of 75 in 1932. Ever since his early years in Europe, Abel showed great interest in isolating pure form of internal gland hormones. The first work that led to his international reputation as a pharmacologist and biochemist was the isolation of epinephrine from adrenal medulla. However, he was only able to isolate a monobenzoyl derivative of epinephrine. While he was improving his processes on decomposing the benzoyl derivative to obtain salts of epinephrine using saponification, a Japanese chemist J. Takamine, who had visited his lab, was able
John J. Jacob (Kentucky) development.) Together with George Keats, in 1841 Jacob was elected to Louisville's City Council for the Fourth Ward. He was a major contributor to Louisville's Blind Asylum and the City Hospital. In 1842, he erected Lyndon Hall, now part of the Hurstbourne Country Club's clubhouse, on his estate in what is now Hurstbourne. His papers are held by the Filson Historical Society's Special Collections in Louisville. In 1811 John J. Jacob married Anne Overton Fontaine, sister-in-law of his partner Thomas Prather in 1811. She bore three children before dying in 1819. In 1822 Jacob married again, to Lucy Donald Robertson