Hungarian invention for easing pain

(Szeretlek Magyarország.hu) – Unfortunately, many people suffer and had been suffering from fatal diseases, for example, cancer. These diseases cause unbearable pain for those being terminally ill and dying. A Hungarian chemist, János Kabay’s invention is still used today to ease the pain of those suffering.

János Kabay was born on 21 December 1896 in Bűdszentmihály (today called Tiszavasvári), in eastern Hungary. First, he enrolled into the Faculty of Chemical Engineering of Royal Joseph University Budapest (today called Budapest University of Technology and Economics), but the first world war broke out, and the young man had to join the army, as Szeretlek Magyarország.hu notes.

Following the war, he was an intern at his uncle’s pharmacy. There he became seriously interested in drugs and medicines, and that was the time when he decided to apply for Pharmaceutics at Pázmány Péter University (one of the predecessors of Eötvös Lóránd University). After obtaining his degree in 1923, he returned to his uncle’s pharmacy in Hajdúnánás, where he was working on issues of preparative chemistry.

At this university, he became interested in opium and morphine production, and, in 1924, he also started experimenting with poppy seeds and morphin. The brilliant scientist, gifted with practical skills and senses, came up with the solution of how to extract morphene from poppy seeds, and how to utilize the results in practice. He believed, that cleaning had to come first, because commercially available morphene was greyish. Among primitive pharmacy conditions, he developed the so-called „green process”: the green poppy plant was reaped after blooming, and after pressing the poppy-heads, the essence was extracted.

According to Szeretlek Magyarország.hu, Kabay patented this method in 1925. After two years, he established the Alkaloida Chemical Company in Tiszavasvár. The company is still operating.

In 2016, Kabay’s oeuvre became a Hungaricum, kabayjanos.eu tells.

Photos: kabayjanos.eu

Copy editor: bm

Source: kabayjanos.eu, szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu