6 Master Minds of Modern Science 



felt that his fears were realized, especially when poison 

 gas swept in waves over the trenches and high explosive 

 bombs killed women and children in the streets of great 

 cities. Yet that same gas, chlorine, has its proper use in 

 bleaching cloth, and the explosives their real value in 

 blasting tunnels through mountains, or breaking up coal 

 in a pit. It is not fair to blame a useful article because 

 it is put to a bad use. 



Science, properly used, has saved far more lives than 

 science badly used has destroyed. Medical Science has 

 reduced the annual death-rate in Great Britain from 

 seventy per thousand to less than fourteen within little 

 more than a century ; it is wiping out infectious diseases 

 — in the end it will utterly destroy them. Chloroform is 

 a poison which will kill, but think of the amount of agony 

 which our ancestors suffered before this anaesthetic was 

 discovered ! In Nelson's day when a wounded man had 

 to have a leg or arm amputated those near by would 

 stuff their ears with cotton-wool so as not to hear his 

 screams. 



Look back farther still at what we call the Dark Ages. 

 For centuries man had stood still; the ordinary citizen 

 enjoyed little comfort in his life; prejudice and persecu- 

 tion reigned supreme. In the middle of the fifteenth 

 century printing was invented; printed books made 

 known to many knowledge that had long been lost for 

 all practical purposes; yet it was not until the seven- 

 teenth century, when that great genius Sir Isaac Newton 

 began his work, that real Science was born and the world 

 awoke from its sleep. 



For a long time progress was slow. Even at the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century there were no rail- 

 ways; it took a week to travel from London to Edin- 

 burgh, and more than a month to cross the Atlantic. 

 Nearly everything that man required was still made by 

 hand. A pair of the commonest boots cost two pounds, 



