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 Jacob Lavranos John Jacob Lavranos John Jacob Lavranos (29 March 1926 Corfu - 1 February 2018 Portugal) was a Greek/South African insurance broker and botanist, with a special interest in succulents. John's mother, Lily, was half Swiss/German, and lived for most of her married life in the family house in Chlomos in Corfu. She and her husband Philip cared for John and his younger brother, Max, saw the occupation of Corfu during WWII, and lived through the bombings by Italians, Germans, British and Americans, only to be plunged immediately into the Greek Civil War of 1946 to 1949. At the end of