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 his Ph.D., but instead decided to receive an M.D. in 1888 from the University of Strasbourg. After his doctorate, Abel worked mostly in clinical studies and took clinical courses, focusing on biochemistry and pharmacology. He traveled around Europe, mostly in Germany and central Europe, conducting research in biochemistry. During this time, Abel had a number of mentors that inspired his work and exposed him to a number of disciplines that eventually prompted him to work in biochemistry and pharmacology. Starting in 1884, Abel worked with doctors Ludwig von Frey in physiology and histology, Rudolf Boehm in pharmacology, Adolph Strümpell in