THE SERVICE OF CHEMISTRY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18571, 1 December 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE SERVICE OF CHEMISTRY

BUSINESS AND BRAINS;

BY MATANOA. ' '

The sight of a band of Auckland business men listening with obvious interest to an address mainly devoted to the praise of chemistry is refreshing in every way. It betokens a happier tendency than once was found among English-speaking merchants, not traditionally prone to extravagant eagerness to mix their business, after the .manner of their countryman famous in art, " with brains." Even stolid Britons can get wise with the years. " 'I he study of chemistry is so closely bound up with success in industry, war, and the arrestment of disease that it is essential to a wealthy, healthy, and peaceful nation." So declared not long ago one of the most brilliant and practical of our British scientists in the course of an appeal for greater attention to this branch of science. That, there was need for that appeal is not altogether a matter for wonder, for signal advance in chemistry is itself but of yesterday, and its progress as a " pure" science, regardless of utilitarian application, had naturally to precede such practical employment. That the appeal is being heeded in our Empire ail present is due very largely to the war, the sternest driving fact of our time. The appeal must be insistently urged and wisely answered for the sake of a better national to-morrow.

A Young Science. The comparatively recent arising of chemistry as a defined front-rank science is often forgotten. Sixty years ago it was not a subject leading to a university degree anywhere in Ores'* Britain, nor was there then a single laboratory for practical work in chemistry in any British university. At Oxford, for example, the professor of botany had to undertake the teaching in this subject also, while at Cambridge the professor of chemistry was a country clergyman whose annual visit to give a course of lectures in his theme was considered a strikingly meritorious sacrifice on his part. No British school at that day had any better tuition in chemistry than ccuid be got from a travelling teacher giving fortnightly instruction with the aid of a box of portable apparatus.

For centuries chemistry was represented no better than by alchemy, the art- that experimented with eagerness in efforts to turn base into precious metals and to find an elixir capable of defying the approach of old age. Moreover, right up to modern times, it was associated with medicine; and' so with us the man who compounds and sells drugs, though he may be so ignorant of chemistry as to be unable to undertake analysis or to manufacture chemicals, is still, called a.chemist. The French style him more truly a "pharmaeien" and our chief enemy of yesterday calls him rightly an "apotheker." This British confusion of a maker of pills and potions with a discoverer of elements bears witness to an age-long tutelage of a science to an empirical occupation. It was as if some ignorant but shrewd gipsy had kidnapped a baby jprince and, after giving him his first instruction, had profited by the child's developing superior gifts until that protege's mature strength claimed freedom i and independence. Chemistry now leads its own life,< though it may sometimes be found hi the company of medicine; and its independence -has made it capable of service to mankind in many and ultiplying fields. The Value of Pure Science. That 'Independence is*essential if the greatest possible, results are to , be achieved. , We ;tre, apt to be imp' f.ient if immediate utilities fail to follow the discovery of knowledge. There is a childish petulance toe often mani! ssted by the manufacturer or the artisa 1 towards any study that does not obv iusly and quickly yield practical gain. With our lust for dividends we would i ,->root the young fruit tree because, forjoo h, '■ it does not come into full bearing within a year or iwo of its planting. Truth to tell, science has always done if is biggest things for art and manufacture when its gaze has. not been limited ty an immediate practical need, waiting to be supplied. It may be roundly asserted that all the history ol science shows that great progress has been achieved only when the scientific investigator has been unhampered by thought of any such practical need. To take a case in point: a very eminent dye-maker states that Kekule's theory of the benzene ring and the atomic theory of Dalton lie at the very foundation of his industry; yet contemporary manufacturers looked upon these generalisations as purely academic and useless. If chemistry is encouragednot merely allowedto pursue knowledge for its own sake and without regard to the possible applications of the knowledge won, it is most likely to be of great practical service. The academic discovery of to-day may be the practical formula of to-morrow. Pure science, is as truly aloof from com-' mercial manufacture a* the aeroplane is from the field of battle: but, in. the same way, though its direct share in an advance may •be small, its range of vision raaKes the advance possible. Fortunes In Coal-Tar. Sixty years or so ago Ferkin, a youthful English chemist, patented a process for the production of the first aniline dye. He had achieved a triumph in synthetic chemistry,, and his discovery began one of the famous industries of the world, that of extracting useful products from coaltar. Heated in a sealed retort, coal yields gas, coke, and tar. From the tar may be distilled oils, light and heavy. These oils, together with the benzol got from the gas, yield the sources of aniline dyes, synthetic indigo, motor fuels and high explosives. Over a thousand separate colours have been found among the dyes, each being a definite chemical compound, not a mixture. I'hoiograptiy and medicine have gained nearly as many fine chemicals, and the distilled ammonia salts have become indispensable to farmers and to manufacturers. Lyddite is but one of the explosives based upon a coal-tar product. The direct and intermediate derivatives from this by-product of coal-gas manufacture are very numerous, and there is practically no limit to the final articles made from it This industry, founded in England, was not encouraged by Englishmen, and it migrated to Germany, not of its own sweet will, but in response to Germany's far sighted and eager invitation. While our manufacturers were careless and blind enough to throw away their opportunity, German manufacturers realised that the coal-tar industry was the beginning: of that synthetic chemistry in which the whole future pi the application of chemical science was wrapped up. There seems a diminishing likelihood of the repetition of that British folly. In view of the widening field of applied cheiwtry, blindness to the practical value of science no longer threatens.