BEFORE PAPYRUS . . . BEYOND RAYON 



By GusTAVUs J. Essexen, Ph. D. 



President, Oustavus J. Esselen, Inc., Chemical Research and Development, 



Boston, Mass. 



We wear it; we live in houses made of it; we record our news and 

 literature upon it; we even take it into our systems with our food. 

 What is it ? The answer to this riddle is a material which has been 

 responsible for epoch-making changes in the trend of human affairs 

 throughout the long road up from savagery through barbarism and 

 early civilization to the present time. Everyone is familiar with 

 it, yet few know it. It is not only the most abundant material of 

 the vegetable kingdom, but it is also one of the most important ma- 

 terials on which man has relied throughout the development of civ- 

 ilization. We know it in the forms of cotton and of linen ; of wood 

 and of paper. We even know it as artificial silk. Yet ref- 

 erence to cellulose, which is the basic chemical substance common to 

 all these materials, brings in a word which is familiar to few. On 

 the other hand, this term cellulose is one destined to become gradu- 

 ally more and more familiar, at least to those who make any pre- 

 tense of following modern trends in the arts and sciences. 



Cellulose has not only exerted an unusual influence on the j)rogress 

 of mankind in the past, but today it is the basic raw material for 

 great industries. Since it forms the structural framework of all 

 trees and plants, it is available wherever vegetable life occurs. 

 Furthermore, it is one of the few raw materials which is capable of 

 periodic reproduction in enormous quantities, and for this reason, 

 if for no other, seems destined to take an increasingly important 

 part in the industrial development of the world. 



Since cellulose is so common in nature, it is only natural that it 

 should have played an outstanding role in the history of mankind 

 from the time that early man took the first step out of savagery 

 by accidentally learning how to burn it, until, in the form of a 



* Reprinted by permission from tiie Journal of the Franklin Institute, vol. 217, no. 3, 

 March 1934. Presented at a meeting of the Franklin Institute held Thursday, Oct. 26, 

 1933. 



1G9 



