Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 118, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1920 — Owes Big Debt to Chemistry [ARTICLE]

Owes Big Debt to Chemistry

Much of Industrial Wealth Can Be Traced to Effort of Some Scientist. MOST FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCE Has to Do With Food We Eat Water We Drink, Clothing We Wear, and In Varying Degree With Every Article in Commerce. By W. LEE LEWIS. (Head of the Department of Chemlitry, Northwestern University and. the Discoverer of “Lewisite,” the* Most Deadly Gas Ever Produced by Man.) “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. . . .” Beneath a simple grave In Northumberland, Pa., Ues the dust of a bumble English clergyman. .He was driven from his native land by religious Intolerance, and sought and found In America Intellectual freedom. This man, Priestly, never earned over £3O a year, yet he discovered oxygen and laid the foundation of modern chemistry. The great steel industries of our country, the vast rubber business, the tremendous packing Interests would deem it a rare privilege were this man living, to contribute to his comfort, and give him the scientific tools that would gladden his heart, and to acknowledge their Immeasurable debt to him. But for the man, Priestly, they can only lay a wreath on his last resting place. Much of the great industrial wealth of this country can be traced to the effort of some obscure chemist, some zealous devotee to pure science, who thought little of self and who never shared In the fruits of his researches.

Fundamental Science. From the standpoint of material resources chemistry is the most fundamental science. It has to do with the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat the clothing we wear and, in varying degree, with every artide that enters into commerce. Chemistry is the science of the composition of matter, and matter is that upon which energy, human and otherwise, is expended. The science embraces the star dust of outermost space, the swirling volcanoes of sun gases, and the bacteria that nibble our food. Consider the value of a single discovery in abstract chemistry. Kirchoff, over a hundred years ago, discovered that starch could be converted into sugar by dilute acids. The United States alone Is richer by $40,000,000 a year because of that discovery. Perkin discovered mauve In tbe Coal tar dyes. Its value was

indexed by an Immediate investment of $750,000,000. The nwrcerizlng of cotton has added to the delight and wealth of the world. Recent improvements in the incandescent lamp has meant a saving of $30,000,000 a year in the cost of lighting. You may reach for a match as you read this. If so. remember it’s chemical history, and pause to consider its place in modern civilization. Foundation of Many Industries. Chemistry is the soul of the packing industry where by-products such as digestive ferments, soap, glycerine, fertilizers, etc., have become as important as main * products. Chemis-, try is the foundation of the rubber in-, dustry, giving cheaper and better processes of purifying, vulcanizing, and recovering. Steel is not a native product but is a chemically modified product. It is stated that the Bessemer steel process adds $20,000,000 to the world’s wealth annually. Chemistry has given us the Davy lamp, the mine gas indicator, the gas mask and the standardized explosive. Chemistry has given us most of our pharmaceuticals, and chemo-therapy is Just In its Infancy. Ehrlich made over 900 arsenical compounds before he struck upon those particular combinations known as “sansalvarsan” and “neosalvarsan.” Chemistry has given us photography, moving-picture films, illuminating gas, fire extinguishers, artificial gasoline, metallurgical processes, water-softening and purifying agents, synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, paints, explosives, glass, paper, the gas mantie, the storage battery, the arc light and has stabilized many an industry by working up into useful products every trace of raw material. Chemistry has standardized food products and njnltlplied the sources ! of supply. It has attacked and partially solved the population problem of sewerage and waste disposal, and water supply. Salving Big Problem. There are 33,800 tons of nitrogen pressing down upon every acre of the earth’s surface, and yet our fields are starving for fixed nitrogen, and in

times of war our present gourde of supply of nitrate for explosives is, to say the least, precarious. > Chemistry is today solving the problem of fixed nitrogen. To further elaborate chemistry’s contribution to human life would bt to write a technical history of IndUStrial development The other great contributing factors have been the organizing ability of business men and the technical skill of the engineer*. To improve American chemistry, to apply It more and more as an efficiency measure In American Industry, Is better national protection than protective tariffs, battleships or coast defenses. The highest chemical efficiency will make us Invincible in commerce and in war. As population Increases and conservation becomes a matter of vital importance. It follows that chemistry muSt assume a more and more significant place In the well-being of mankind. Chemistry belongs peculiarly to the age of intensive utilization of a country’s resources. The cream-skim-ming period has passed; this is the age of by-products. Still Much to Be Done. There is a danger that great industrial organizations who owe their very existence to the science of chemistry, In the fullness of their present prosperity may forget their debt to ths past and their obligation to the future. There is still much to be done in the improvement of old processes and the discovery of new. To handicap the chemical laboratories of our educational Institutions, whence comes the stream of technically trained men, and the unselfish contributions of pure science, is effectual to kill the erstwhile goose that laid the golden egg. The universities cannot carry the burden without the aid of enlightened Industrialism. They cannot raise the price of their product to meet the everIncreasing cost of laboratories, scientific equipment, high-grade InStructTon and pure research. No thinking man can fall to recognize that the ranks of the teaching profession, present and prospective, are becoming seriously de-. pleted through the Inability of our educational Institutions to bear unaided the Qroblem of ever-Increasing costs. It Is short-sighted policy for big business to attract from the universities our best chemists, to pick before they are ripe our young men to course of training, or by a lack of sympathetic support to jeopardize the future output of scientific research.