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synthetic since it does not depend on the incorporation or alteration
of a naturally occurring substance.

In the 1930s, one of the premier chemical companies in the world was
the I.G Farben Corporation in Germany. Chemists employed by
Farben were successful in producing compounds that were patented
and controlled by the company. This was the same company that had
been successful in producing heroin by altering morphine. The
devastating reality that heroin was at least as addicting as morphine
was a severe jolt to the company and set them onto a more difficult
path. They began a project to find a compound that would be as
effective as morphine for pain relief and not have the terrible price of
addiction. (That search goes on today.)

In 1937 Drs. Max Eisleb and Gustav Schaumann came up with a novel
compound, which is now known as pethidine. They could
demonstrate that it did indeed have analgesic properties that were quite
impressive. Alas, it also proved to be addictive. That compound is
still used throughout the world, known in some countries still by the
name of pethidine, in the United States it is better known as
meperidine or Demerol. It is still used in obstetrics where it's brief
duration of action is often valuable.

In l938 Drs. Max Bockmuhl and Gustav Ehrhart announced that they
believed they had solved the problem. Because the Farber plant was
located at Hochst-am-Main, the serial number for the product was
Hochst-10820 and the name they eventually used was Palamidon.

Because of the focus of the entire German nation on preparation and
support for the war, there is a hiatus in our knowledge of exactly what
happened during the next few years, but it is known that all the
synthetic analgesics that were produced by Farben were used in place
of morphine which was no longer available to the Germans.

When Germany collapsed in l945, the Americans took control of the
Farben plant and all its scientific and intellectual properties. These
were acquired by Eli Lilly, the American pharmaceutical giant. That
same year, the U.S. Department of Commerce published a report on a