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The California State Parks curators granted access to artifacts owned by Jack London that are in storage in their Sonoma Barracks in Sonoma, CA. A medicine case, drug vials, and various paper documents that covered the period of his life from 1906 to 1915 were examined for drug residues left on their surface. All the objects were tested with the non-invasive surface analysis EVA (ethylene-vinyl acetate) technology, which consist of a foil studded with ground mixed-bed cation/anion exchangers as well as with C$_{8}$ and C$_{18}$ resins. The harvested material collected by the foils was analysed via GC-MS and the following 12 drugs were identified: N-(4-ethoxyphenyl) acetamide, phenyl salicylic acid, morphine, 6-monoacetylmorphine, 3-acetylmorphine, diacetylmorphine, dipenteneglycol, quinine dihydrochloride, quinine base, atropine, scopolamine and hyoscyamine. Despite the claims by his biographers that he used opium, morphine, and heroin on a regular basis this assertion could not be confirmed by the chemical analyses of the objects here tested. Only two opioids were discovered, morphine and diacetylmorphine (heroin) both of which could have been derived from the use of common, legal (over-the-counter) flu and cough medications.

John P Peters is considered one of the founders of modern clinical chemistry. In more than 200 research articles, he brought clinical biochemistry to the bedside, advancing the use of laboratory medicine in diagnosis and disease management. His two-volume landmark textbook Quantitative Clinical Chemistry, coauthored with Donald Dexter van Slyke (1883–1971) and released in 1931–1932, defined clinical chemistry as a distinct professional discipline within medicine. A three-volume revision was begun in 1937. Peters took on the task of revising Volumes I and II but never finished Volume II. His outspoken public advocacy for social reform, world peace, and universal health care made him a target in the era of McCarthyism. Three times between 1949 and 1953 he was brought before the Loyalty Review Board with charges of being a communist and a sympathetic supporter of subversive organizations. According to his family, the turmoil of the McCarthyism persecution shortened his life and prevented him from completing the one thing he wanted to do in his professional life, finish the revision of his landmark clinical chemistry textbook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]