Charles-Joseph Tanret: natural principles

Charles Tanret (1847-1917) was a French chemist and pharmacist who devoted most of his life to the isolation of new alkaloids and the chemistry of sugars. To his credit we owe the preparation of crystalline digitalis, the isolation of ergotinin, cornutin, and ergosterol from rye ergot, vincetoxin from the root of Asclepias, isohesperidin, hesperidin, etc. from the peel of bitter orange, quebrachitol from the bark of white quebracho, levosine from ripe rye, wheat, and barley, the glucoside picein from the leaves of spruce fir, and its derivative piceol, the synthesis of levoglucosan from piceol, and the synthesis of artificial alkaloids by the reaction between ammonia and glucose.