Background

Frederick Belding Power was born on March 4, 1853, in Hudson, New York, the son of Thomas and Caroline P. (Belding) Power.

Education

Power received his early education at a private school and at Hudson Academy. He then graduated from Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (1874), and from the University of Strassburg, Germany (Ph.D., 1880). In 1908 he received his Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Wisconsin.

Career

Power worked for several years in a local drugstore and briefly in a Chicago pharmacy before obtaining a position in the establishment of the noted Philadelphia pharmacist Edward Parrish. After spending two more years with the Parrish firm, Power studied chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Strasbourg, and upon receiving his doctorate in 1880, he returned to America to teach analytical chemistry at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy.

In 1883 Power went to the University of Wisconsin to serve as the first director of the newly created department of pharmacy. After guiding the Wisconsin pharmacy program through its infant years and placing it on a scientific footing that was to make it a leader in American pharmaceutical education, he left in 1892 to become scientific director of the chemical laboratories of Fritzsche Brothers in New Jersey. In 1896 Henry Wellcome established the Wellcome Chemical Research Laboratories in London and appointed Power to be director, a position he held until 1914. From 1916 until his death. Power was head of the phytochemical laboratory of the Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of Agriculture.

Power’s research was concentrated entirely in phytochemistry. He added significantly to the knowledge of plant chemistry by isolating and purifying numerous constituents from a host of different plant substances, and by determining the chemical structures of many of these constituents.

Power and his co-workers at the Wellcome Laboratories isolated from the oil two new fatty acids, chaulmoogric and hydnocarpic acids, which were considered to be the active ingredients. They also determined the structures of these two acids, although the formulas assigned have been modified. Other important studies include his researches on the constituents of the essential oils of nutmeg, of the cotton plant, and of certain fruits.

Achievements

• Power's major achievement was in performing a great service in creating fundamental knowledge about medicinal plants. He was a force in industry through his work with Wellcome Chemical Research Laboratories and was an educator of the first rank among scientists.
  
  Another Frederick Power's achievement was in the establishment of the school of pharmacy under the University of Wisconsin. He published many articles on essential oils and alkaloids, and translations of two of Flückiger's works - The Cinchona Barks (1884) and The Principles of Pharmacognosy (1887). The fundamental significance of his investigation may be appreciated when it is realized that derivatives of chaulmoogra oil are used in the treatment of leprosy.
  
  Among his honors were the Hanbury gold medal (1913), the Fluckiger gold medal (1922), and election to the National Academy of Sciences.

Works

More photos

• article

  • Biographical sketch of Charles Darwin and the Darwin commemoration at Cambridge 1909

• book

  • The Principles of Pharmacognosy: An Introduction to the Study of the Crude Substances of the Vegetable Kingdom 1887
  • The International conference for the unification of the formulae of potent medicaments 1903
  • A Manual of Chemical Analysis as Applied to the Examination of Medicinal Chemicals 1883
  • A Manual of Chemical Analysis As Applied to the Examination of Medicinal Chemicals: A Guide for the Determination of Their Identity and Quality, and for the Detection of Impurities and Adulterations 1873
  • Descriptive Catalogue of Essentials Oils and Organic Chemical Preparations 1894
  • The Cinchona Barks: Pharmacognosticlly Considered 1884
  • On the chemical composition of the oil of sassafras bark and oil of sassafrass leaves 1896
  • Chemical examination of kosam seeds 1903
  • Exhibits at the Anglo-American Exposition 1914
  • Les Laboratoires Wellcome de Recherches Chimiques A l'exposition universelle et internationale de Bruxelles 1910
  • Laboratori Wellcome dei Ricerche Chimiche: mostra all'esposizione internazionale 1911
  • The chemistry of the stem of Derris uligionosa, Benth. An eastern fish poison 1902

Membership

Power was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• When Frederick Belding Power died in 1927, the editor of the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association wrote that Power was “an honor to pharmacy and inspiration to scientists and is entitled to a place in Pharmacy’s Hall of Fame.”
  
  In 1924, Ivor Griffith, editor of the American Journal of Pharmacy and later dean and president of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, reviewed Power’s publications and noted that the “extent of his work and his incalculable services to his profession may be judged by surveying this brilliant record of his scientific contributions.”

Connections

Power married Mary Van Loan Meigs (died 1894) in 1883; they had two children: Mistress Annie Louise Heimke, Donald Meigs.

Father:

Thomas Power

Mother:

Caroline P. (Belding) Power

Spouse:

Mary Van Loan Meigs

Son:

Donald Meigs Power

Daughter:

Mistress Annie Louise Heimke Power

Wife:

Mary Van Loan Meigs

Friend:

Henry Solomon Wellcome

Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome (August 21, 1853 – July 25, 1936) was a British pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Company with his colleague Silas Burroughs in 1880.

Wellcome graduated in 1874 from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, in the same class as his lifelong friend Power.

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  1975
• Journal Of The American Pharmaceutical Association
  1922