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 pathology, and Johannes Wislicenus in organic and inorganic chemistry. All of this work was done in Leipzig until 1886, until Abel moved on to Strassburg, where he again worked in various fields: internal medicine with Adolph Kussmaul, and Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen in infectious disease and pathology. Eventually, Abel moved back to Strassburg where he worked more with Oswald Schmiedeberg among others. Schmeidberg, however, sparked his interest in pharmacological research. Lastly, he worked in a biochemical laboratory in Berne, where he met one Arthur Robertson Cushny, who eventually worked with him at Michigan. Finishing his time in Europe, Abel returned