io8 SCIENCE AND THE WAR 



mallow, the colour of whose flower it somewhat 

 resembled. In 1862 there was an International 

 Exhibition in London ; and those who remem- 

 bered it and its predecessor of 1851 have declared 

 that the case of aniline dye-s tuffs for by that 

 time quite a number of new pigments had been 

 discovered- excited at the later the same atten- 

 tion as that given to the Koh-i-noor at the earlier. 

 The invention, out of which grew the enormous 

 German business already alluded to, and with 

 which has been associated the discovery and 

 manufacture of the synthetic drugs, was entirely 

 British in its inception and in its early stages. 

 Moreover the raw materials on which it depended, 

 namely, gas-tar products, were to be had in 

 greater abundance in England than anywhere 

 else. Yet, at the time when the war broke out, 

 this industry had been allowed almost entirely to 

 drift into German hands. 



How was this ? Let an expert reply. It was 

 due, he tells us, to the neglect of " the repeated 

 warnings which have been issued since that time " 

 (viz. 1880, by which date the Germans had 

 succeeded in capturing the trade in question) 

 " in no uncertain voice by Meldola, Green, the 

 Perkins (father and son), and many other English 

 chemists." Further, he continues, two causes 

 have invariably been indicated for the transfer of 

 this industry to Germany " first the neglect of 

 organic chemistry in the Universities and colleges 

 of this country " (a neglect which has long ceased), 

 " and then the disregard by manufacturers of 

 scientific methods and assistance and total in- 



