

THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



; \i ..1st l, 1915. 



The Story of Gutta Percha. 



I'lu'v established a 

 "neer London," a 



EARLY HISTORY. 



IT is to the Dutch that we owe the first .^ well as tin- last 

 wc.nl in the historj of gutta percha. The las! word is the 

 of tin- linn establishment in Java of tin- scientifii 

 cultivation ami utilization of the plant. The first was when 

 tin- Dutchman, John Trade-scant, brought to England the first 

 imen of gutta percha which attracted the intelligent 

 curiosity of white men. The Tradescants, father and son, the 

 former sometime gardener t" Charles I ol England, were 

 lists and travelers, alert and wide-awake men, greatl) in 

 advance of thi ag. in vi hich they li\ ed 

 museum of "rarities" at South Lambeth 

 heterogeneous collection of curious ob- 

 jects from many lands. In the cat- 

 of this "Museum I radesi an 

 tinm" Hi. re 0< . nrs an entry which for 

 two hundred years attracted little at- 

 tention but which now holds a sur- 

 passing interest for all students of the 

 industrial sidi of tin- history of civi- 

 I hi, notes that "The ply- 

 able mazer wood, being warmed, will 

 work in any shape." That is all. No 

 attention was paid to it and. in spite 



..i Statements to the contrary, I lie 

 specimen was lost and is no longer to 

 lie found among the remains of the 

 "Museum Tradescantium," now housed 

 at Oxford. 



But though nothing further came 

 from the bringing to Europe of thi-, 

 earliest known specimen of gutta 

 percha. the history of that necessity 

 of civilization cannot he written with- 

 out reference to the Tradescants. 

 They knew that the strange pliable 

 wood was worth attention. But that 

 was an age of politics and religion, 

 and people had no taste for such 



minor matters as science and invention. Modern encyclo- 

 pedias and biographical dictionaries slight the Tradescants, 

 who, however, have been immortalized by having had named 

 for them the genus Tradescantia, by an authority no less 

 than the great Linnaeus himself. 



The fact that it was called wood is not strange, for gutta 

 percha in its crude form shows a distinct fibrous appearance. 

 The wood "Mazer"' comes from an old Teutonic name for the 

 maple and was given to drinking cups originally made from 

 the wood of that tree. They were shaped like the classic 

 "crater," a flaring cup with a foot, thereby distinguished from 

 the "tumblers." which would not stand on the table, thus 

 placing upon the guest the necessity of drinking all the wine 

 poured out by the hospitable host. 



From 1656 — in the time of Cromwell — one hundred and 

 fifty-six years passed before the strange substance again at- 

 tracted the attention of civilized men. Then Dr. William 

 Montgomerie, l'.ritish medical resident at the newly founded 

 town of Singapore, observed whips of a strange material in 

 the hands of some of the natives. They told him that it was 

 "gutta percha." \ny person who has had experience in 

 getting information from "natives" anywhere can imagine the 

 S. <.t.li physician's questions and the answers he received 

 What was gutta percha? Why, it was just gutta percha. that 

 was all. What was it made of? What a question! The 



John Tradescant, Sr 



whips were made of gutta percha, but gutta percha was gutta 

 percha and that was all there was to it. Where did they get 

 it? Why, they bought it of a man who hid gutta percha to 

 sell. \\ here did that man get it? Why he bought it of an- 

 other man. That was the only way gutta percha was to be 

 had — to buy it of somebody who had it to sell. It was all 

 n\ simple and only a muddle headed white man could ask 

 such foolish questions as to what it was. when anybody could 

 plainly see that it was gutta percha; and ask where it came 

 from, when it could lie had of tiny trader who kept it 

 for sale. 



After twenty years, however, Dr. Montgomerie had found 

 that it was made from the coagulated 

 milky juice of a tree and was able to 

 obtain several specimens of the ma- 

 terial, ( >n the first of March, 1843. 

 he wrote from Singapore to the 

 Medical Board at Calcutta, describing 

 the physical properties of the sub- 

 stance and suggesting its use in the 

 manufacture of certain surgical instru- 

 ments. With this letter he sent some 

 instruments he had manufactured with 

 his own hands, also the handle of a 

 parang, the East-Indian congener of 

 the Spanish American machete, and 

 used by the natives for all manner of 

 purposes, from cutting down trees to 

 slicing disagreeable neighbors. He 

 was unable to obtain any parts of the 

 plant to aid in its botanical identifica- 

 tion. The reason is interesting. The 

 locality where the trees were found, 

 seven miles from Singapore, was so 

 infested with tigers that nobody 

 cared for the task of collecting the 

 desired specimens. Dr. Montgomerie's 

 letter was printed in the "Journal of 

 the Agricultural and Horticultural So- 

 ciety of India'' and is the first published article which clearly and 

 definitely gave to the world a knowledge of gutta percha. 



It is an unfortunate fact that through the whole history of 

 the world there has been scarcely an important invention, dis- 

 covery or epoch-making fact of any sort which has not been 

 the occasion for controversy of a peculiarly bitter kind. The 

 introduction of gutta percha to the arts of civilization is not 

 an exception and the question of priority cannot be shirked. 

 In the spring of 1843 Dr. Jose D'Almeida, a British subject in 

 spite of his Spanish name, brought to England a riding whip 

 made of gutta percha and also a piece of the crude material. 

 These were presented to the Royal Asiatic Society, the sec- 

 retary of which acknowledged their receipt in a letter dated 

 April S, 1843. In the summer of the same year Mr. Henry 

 Gouger. on behalf of his brother-in-law, Dr. Montgomerie. 

 presented to the Society of Arts a bottle of the latex of the 

 gutta percha tree, together with specimens of the gum in 

 various early stages of manufacture. The specimens received 

 bj the Royal Asiatic Society from Dr. D'Almeida attracted no 

 attention. That sent by Dr. Montgomerie to the Society of 

 \rts was referred to a committee which, at a later date. 

 January 23, 1845, reported that "this substance appears to 

 be a very valuable article and might be employed with ad- 

 vantage in many of the arts and manufactures of the country." 

 Further experiments made under the auspices of the So- 



