When British physiologist Ernest Starling introduced the concept of hormones in 1905, he assigned to organic chemistry the role of a basic science. He was convinced that once chemists had discovered the chemical structure of physiological substances that act like drugs within the body, medicine would be able to regulate processes of coordination in cases of hormonal imbalance:

For Starling, determining chemical structure and medical control went hand in hand. His unbounded belief in a glorious future for scientific medicine was based on the notion of imitation and copying. Notwithstanding the fact that, apart from adrenaline, no hormone had been isolated in pure form and synthetically standardized at the time, and that producing hormones was altogether a question of preparing biological material, he was convinced that knowledge would automatically lead to power. He reduced the problem of standardization to one of refinement: the transformation of a natural object into a technological one. Henceforth, medicine would no longer experiment with treatments and drugs of unknown structure and effect, but would make use of nature's own remeddies.