WHY STUDY CHEMISTRY? V 



Chemistry is the science of power. All the energy of man and 

 beast and all the energy of machinery, except that furnished by 

 windmills and water wheels, is chemical energy and nearly all 

 of this is derived from two simple and similar chemical reactions, 

 the oxidation of hydrogen to form water and of carbon to form 

 carbon dioxide. Food and fuel plus the oxygen of the air pro- 

 vide the motive force of the modern world. The automobile 

 and the elephant, the airplane and the eagle, the whale and the 

 steamboat, man and his machines would alike be lifeless unless 

 empowered by the oxidation of hydrogen-carbon compounds. 

 Potential chemical energy is peculiarly effective in that it is so 

 compact, portable and permanent. A few bags can contain 

 enough of it to blow up a building or propel a projectile seventy- 

 five miles. 



Chemistry has control of life and death. An animal or plant 

 deprived for a time of the proper chemical compounds will starve 

 or if it imbibes a minute amount of the wrong chemical com- 

 pounds it dies at once. The vital processes of the body are con- 

 trolled by chemicals, some of which are already known, and a 

 little more or less of them in the blood determines whether we 

 shall be tall or short, bright or dull, handsome or ugly, cheerful 

 or melancholy. 



Chemistry is the science of terror and pity. Warfare has been 

 an intermittent branch of applied chemistry ever since the inven- 

 tion of gunpowder, but it was not until 1914-18 that its terrible 

 power of destruction and devastation was realized. But chem- 

 istry may heal the wounds it causes, even with medicaments 

 drawn from the same unpromising protean stuff, coal tar, that 

 yields the high explosives and poison gas. Chemistry is the chief 

 weapon of man in his lifelong fight against the bacteria and pro- 

 tozoa that invade his body and ultimately destroy it. It is with 

 chemicals that he combats the insects that eat his crops and infect 

 him with disease. It is chemistry that brings relief to the sleep- 

 less and suffering and deprives surgery of its pain. Chemistry 



