Lerner and his colleagues processed 250,000 pineal glands to obtain the key component, an active substance identified as N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine. In 1953, he succeeded in isolation of the extract from bovine pineal glands that made the color of the frog skin lighter.
The honor of this discovery belongs to Aaron Lerner, a Yale dermatologist. It is difficult to overestimate the role played by our natural chronograph in the regulation of the body’s physiological rhythms and their adaptation to the environmental conditions.
The epiphysis (pineal gland) is the biological clock of the organism, and its hormone, melatonin, may be compared to the balance wheel that regulates the beat of this clock. The rotation of our planet around its axis and concurrently around the Sun ticks away days, seasons, and years of human life.
The alternation of day and night, light and darkness is among the most essential natural phenomena on Earth.