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 Abel to the University of Michigan as the chair of Materia Medica and Therapeutics. There, he played an important role in developing the first pharmacology department in North America. He only was at the University of Michigan until 1893, when William Osler of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine asked Abel to come to the school and accept a Professorship of Pharmacology. At Johns Hopkins, Abel was the chair of pharmacology and biological chemistry, until the departments split in 1908, when Abel became the chair solely of the Department of Pharmacology. At Johns Hopkins, Abel performed his most groundbreaking research and held