DURING the first half of the year 1935 communications appeared from four different laboratories, in three different countries, each describing the discovery and isolation of a new alkaloid from ergot, very different in its properties from those previously known. These communications dealt with researches which had been proceeding concurrently and independently, and in each case the authors gave a name to the alkaloid which they had obtained, so that four new names were put forward—Ergometrine1, Ergotocin2, Ergobasine3 and Ergostetrine4.