62 



NATURE 



[September 1 8, 19 19 



of our industrial insufficiencies and emphasised in 

 various ways tlie importance of researcii in connection 

 with our industries. Again, the coal-tar colour industry 

 furnished, as it had done again and again, some thirty 

 to forty years ago, the text from which research anil 

 its importance was preached. This time the reitera- 

 tion had the effect that the "aniline phantasm," as I 

 have seen it described, was recognised as a "key 

 industry," important to the vitality of the manufac- 

 ture of textiles; with the result that the Govern- 

 rnent, discarding its fiscal policy, was induced to sub- 

 sidise the enterprise for the manufacture of dyes and 

 other coal-tar products. The negotiations preceding 

 the formation of British .Dyes, Ltd., have been 

 remarkable as revealing that, in the eyes of some 

 at any rate, special knowledge is a "dangerous 

 thing," and, in fact, was deemed sufficient to exclude 

 its possessors from a seat on the directorate. This 

 is all the more remarkable, as the history of similar 

 enterprises in Germany shows the personnel of the 

 directorates to be made up of university trained men 

 and, in not a few instances, of professors. So that 

 in Germany academic distinction and theoretic learn- 

 ing are not considered as excluding the possession of 

 commercial acumen and those other qualities needed 

 in a successful man of business. 



In the early stages of the war the demand for 

 explosives was met by the expansion of already 

 existing factories, the increase in staff of which called 

 for many additional men with chemical training, a 

 call which become unprecedented and insistent when 

 the national factories were founded, so that men and 

 women with a chemical training found an opportunity 

 of putting their knowledge at the service of their 

 country. And in not a few instances those who, for 

 financial reasons, had at the close of their college 

 career taken up a less congenial employment were 

 able to return to the practice of chemistry, for which 

 in their student days they had specially fitted them- 

 selves. 



In the foreword of the publication " Reports on Costs 

 and Efficiencies for H.M. Factories," issued by the 

 Ministry of Munitions, we are told that only " when 

 it was decided to commence the erection of new and 

 national factories, and an attempt was made to col- 

 lect from existing factories the necessary technical 

 data and assistance, did it become evident that, ^ue 

 to the extraordinary demands of the war, there was 

 — practically throughout the entire country — a regret- 

 table lack of available accurate technical data, and 

 an even greater lack of trained technical men, more 

 particularly chemical engineers," 



To anyone acquainted with the conditions existing 

 in this country in pre-war days, the lack of " trained 

 technical men " is no matter of surprise. In fact, one 

 cannot fail to be astonished at the remarkable de- 

 velopment of chemical manufacture which has taken 

 place under the directing influence of Lord Moulton 

 in response to the call from Army and Navy. That 

 men were found capable of taking a part in these 

 varied undertakings cannot, at any rate, be credited 

 to the encouragement which the teaching of chemistry 

 or the students of the science had received from 

 those directing industries which employ or should 

 employ the services of chemists. It is no uncommon 

 experience to find the chemist employed simply in 

 the analytical testing of raw materials and manu- 

 factured products, and even in the working of pro- 

 cesses under their control the potentiality of the 

 chemist is not utilised to the full, as is evident from 

 the following, which is a quotation from the preface 

 to the brochure issued by the Ministry of Munitions 

 to which I have already referred : " Since the 

 beginning the policy of the Department with regard 

 NO. 2603, VOL. 104] 



to our national factories has been to aim at maximum 

 efficiency in respect of cost and usage of materials. 



" For this purpose the greatest efforts have been 

 made to place before all those who are in any way 

 responsible for control full details concerning the 

 working and costs of the factories. This was rather 

 an innovation in the field of chemical manufacture, 

 as until comparatively recently, either intentionally or 

 through negligence, it was customary at many 

 chemical plants to keep the chemists in complete 

 ignorance, not only of the cost at their plants, but 

 also even of the efficiencies. 



" It is amazing that manufacturers can expect im- 

 provements in chemical processes when their chemists 

 arc kept in ignorance of such vital facts. 



" It has happened very often that as soon as detailed 

 figures were seen by chemists at a plant, important 

 alterations and improvements have at once been sug- 

 gested, the need for which would otherwise never 

 have been noticed." 



The condition of service indicated in the passage 

 quoted, together with the low scale of remuneration 

 which obtained hitherto in chemical industries, help 

 to explain the scarcity of the kind of scientific labour 

 referred to in the quotation I have made from the 

 " Foreword." 



But are we not told and invited to believe that all 

 this is changed, that the records of the magnificent 

 achievements of British chemists in the war have so 

 educated the people, and may we say, the Govern- 

 ment also, that the practitioners in chemistry will no 

 longer find it essential that in describing their voca- 

 tion they should be required to add, unless for special 

 reasons, such prefixes as "analytical," "research," 

 "scientific," or "engineering" to the word chemist, 

 secure in the feeling that by describing themselves as 

 " chemists ' their standing, training, and profession 

 will be correctly understood? 



Still, a feeling akin to despondency, if nothing 

 worse, is pardonable when, realising the fundamental 

 importance of chemistry to our industries, and *he 

 thousand and one ways chemical re.search has minis- 

 tered to the amenities of our everyday life, therj 

 should exist, not alone in the mind of the general 

 public, but of the educated also, such a lack of 

 information as has been revealed during the past lew 

 years — to wit, the myth woven into the history of 

 the production of glycerine, the confusion in the 

 minds of legislators between phosphates and phos- 

 gene. More serious, however, is the fact that the 

 method of investigation employed by the chemist is 

 so little appreciated or understood as to lead one to 

 imagine that the discoveries and achievements are 

 the results of a soecies of legerdemain. The produc- 

 tion of new colours, a succession of happy thoughts, 

 and that " by an accident the secret of synthetic indigo 

 was unlocked." This last is a quotation from a 

 review entitled "The Value of Scientific Research," 

 published some three years ago, and is typical of 

 much that passes muster in appraising the value of 

 chemical research. That the unravelling of the con- 

 stitution of indigo which occupied Baeyer and his 

 pupils some thirteen years — the account of these inves- 

 tigations covers some i8o pages of Baeyer's collected 

 works — should be summarised in this way appeared to 

 me to call for a protest. My protest was made, and 

 I attempted to put the matter in the correct light, 

 showing the synthesis of indigo to be, indeed, a 

 brilliant example of the value of theorv and of a 

 practical illustration of the importance of the chemist's 

 conception of the architecture of molecules, as exem- 

 olified by Kekul^'s theory of the constitution of 

 benzene. The protestation evoked a reply from a cor- 

 respondent signing himself D.Sc, Ph.D., who sought 



