LIEBIG AND TEE CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES. 533 



THE INFLUENCE OF LIEBIG ON THE DEVELOPMENT 

 OF CHEMICAL INDUSTEIES.* 



By Dh. carl DUISBERG, 

 director of the farbenfabriken vorm. friedr. bayer & co. at elberfeld. 



rriHE chemical industry is a child of the nineteenth century. The 

 -L inorganic branch, the so-called industry of heavy chemicals, such 

 as the manufacture of sulphuric acid in lead chambers, the manufac- 

 ture of nitric acid, of hydrochloric acid, of sulphate, the manufacture 

 of soda according to Le Blanc's process, the manufacture of chlorine 

 and bleaching powder according to the processes of Deacon and Wel- 

 don, was already in operation in the first part of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, while the organic branch of the industry, the manufacture of 

 coal-tar products, of the organic intermediary products, of the aniline 

 and alizarine dyestuffs, pharmaceutical and photographic preparations, 

 the artificial sweeteners and artificial perfumes, and the whole crowned 

 by the synthesis and manufacture of indigo on a large scale, became 

 known only in the latter part of the last century. 



As Liebig's influence on the education of chemists and on the 

 chemical industries was chiefly exercised during the time he lived in 

 Giessen, that is until about 1860, and as this influence became of 

 course perceptible only very gradually and slowly, it is evident that 

 the organic chemical industries owe most of their progress to Liebig, 

 and therefore I shall devote my remarks chiefly to a description of 

 this influence. 



As every branch of industry is originally the result of empirical 

 research, it is very rare for men of great scientific knowledge to be- 

 come the founders of any new industry. We find that almost in- 

 variably energetic and enterprising merchants, who possess some tech- 

 nical skill, are at the head of such undertakings; and thus we find at 

 the beginning merchants as managers of the factories of the organic 

 chemical industries. Scientific research pointed out the direction 

 in which the gold fields were to be discovered, and enterprising and 

 energetic men marched on the road indicated to the unl^nown regions, 

 provided with the simplest tools, to uncover the golden treasures and 

 to free them from the gangue which hid them from the view of man- 

 kind. 



* An address delivered before a joint meeting of the New York Sections 

 of the Society of Chemical Industry, the American Chemical Society, the 

 Verein Deutschen Chemiker and the Chemists Club, held in celebration of the 

 one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Justus von Liebig. 



