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
Abel Seyler the Younger Abel Seyler the Younger Abel Jacob Gerhard Seyler (1756 – 1805), also known as Abel Seyler the Younger, was a German scholar, pharmacist, freemason and a member of the original Illuminati order. Described as highly erudite, he was court pharmacist in Celle from 1791 to 1803, and also owned the famous Andreae & Co. court pharmacy in Hanover with his two siblings as co-owners from 1793 to 1803. He was the oldest son of the Swiss-born banker turned theatre principal Abel Seyler and his first wife Sophie Elisabeth Andreae, and was a maternal grandson of the wealthy Hanover court pharmacist