FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE 15 



One of the results of these epoch making discoveries was 

 increased confidence on the part of the organic chemists, who, 

 beginning with Wohler and Berzelius, w^ere cautiously creat- 

 ing by laboratory synthesis compounds 'previously held to 

 transcend simple nature. Within the half century the laws 

 of the inorganic world have been extended, first to organic 

 compounds, then to organic processes, and finally to the essen- 

 tially vital processes exhibited by both plants and animals; 

 to-day the chemist and physicist stand on common ground to 

 sustain and explain physiology, and even the modern psychol- 

 ogy which finds the source of mentation in cerebral decom- 

 position and recomposition. 



During recent decades the applications of chemistry' have 

 multiplied and extended in various directions. The new 

 alloys required for novel physical and industrial devices have 

 been produced ; high explosives innumerable have been com- 

 pounded ; and the chemist has co-operated with the physicist 

 in liquefying gases, and with the astronomer in analyzing suns 

 and comets and the rings of Saturn. Meantime, chemistry 

 has been brought into touch with daily life as an adjunct to 

 medicine, and as a means of testing foods and drugs in public 

 sanitation. Perhaps the most brilliant applications of chem- 

 istry sprang from researches concerning the hydrocarbons 

 preserved in the rocks of the earth as records of vitality during 

 ages past ; and the coal tar products have been made to yield 

 dyes rivaling the rainbow in brilliancy and range of color, per- 

 fumes stronger than musk and sweeter than attar of roses, 

 flavors more sapid than sugar and spice, and a plenteous 

 series of unguents and medicaments — indeed, every material 

 requisite for life and luxury except food. 



The contributions of chemistry to knowledge and wel- 

 fare during the half century have been many, j^et relatively 

 fewer and poorer than the rich returns from other sciences; 

 and it is a conspicuous fact that few American names are con- 

 nected with the greater advances in the science. While 

 America's additions to astronomy, physics, geology, and 

 anthropology have been of the first magnitude, modern 

 chemistry remains a monument to European genius almost 

 alone. In connection with this fact — perhaps in explanation 



