280 



DISCOVERY 



It is obvious that a disease of this kind is likely to 

 exert a powerful influence on over-production, and 

 should no remedial measures be found, its increase at 

 the worst might involve wholesale replanting of trees 

 in from fifteen to twenty years' time. 



Up to quite recently brown bast was described as a 

 physiological disease of the tree, the term in reality 

 being only a confession of ignorance as to its true 

 nature. It was supposed to be due to the effects of 

 tapping, and has been compared with anc-emia in a 

 human being. Recently, however, a mycologist in 

 Sumatra claims to have isolated a definite bacterium 

 to w-hich the disease is due, and should further research 

 support this discovery, the search for a remedy would 

 appear not to be hopeless since the cause is known. 



Among other diseases with which estates are troubled 

 may be placed in order, after brown bast, the well- 

 known fomes, ustelina, pink dieback, striped canker, 

 and a new enemy called patch canker, while it is well 

 known that any diseased wood is liable to attacks from 

 white ants. Apart from brown bast, however, which 

 has so far defeated the best efforts, most of these 

 diseases are well understood and can be adequately 

 treated if taken in time. 



Sir William Henry Perkin, 

 F.R.S. 



March 12, 1838— July 14, 1907 



The Discoverer of Mauve, the First of the Aniline or 

 Coal-tar Dyes 



The keynote to the life of the discoverer whose short 

 biography we give this month has been sounded by 

 himself in the words " Research was my ambition." 

 Born in London, the son of a builder and contractor, 

 he was educated at a private school and then at the 

 City of London School, being intended by his father for 

 the profession of an architect. While still at school, 

 however, he exhibited an unmistakable leaning 

 towards chemistry, devoting the lunch hour to attend- 

 ing lectures on this subject, not in those days included 

 in the usual school curriculum. At the age of fifteen 

 he entered the Royal College of Chemistry under 

 Hofmann, whose honorary assistant he became two 

 years later. His first piece of research work under 

 this distinguished teacher, though it resulted in failure 

 through no fault of his own, led to the preparation of 

 anthraquinone, the parent substance of alizarin, from 

 anthracene, which in itself would have been no mean 



triumph had he been able to appreciate the significance 

 of what he had done. It must be remembered that at 

 this time organic chemistry was in its infancy, and there 

 was no theory to guide the worker as to the results 

 obtained in the laboratory. His first successful piece 

 of research was completed in 1855, w-hen he was but 

 seventeen years old, and he was then promoted to the 

 Research Staff under Hofmann. It was here that he 

 formed a friendship with Professor A. H. Church, with 

 whom he afterwards collaborated, and it was while in 

 this position that he made his great discovery of Mauve, 

 and laid the foundation-stone of the coal-tar dye 

 industry. As Meldola has so well expressed it," Seldom, 

 if ever, in the history of science has the discovery of one 

 chemical compound of practical utility led to results of 

 such enormous scientific and industrial imp)Ortance as 

 this accidental preparation of Mauve in 1836." This 

 discovery was made by a lad of eighteen. Such an 

 ardent research worker was Perkin that the time spent 

 in Hofmann's laboratory was not long enough, and he 

 accordingly fitted up a room in his father's house at 

 Shadwell, and there pursued his researches, indepen- 

 dently of Hofmann, in the evenings and during the 

 holiday's. Here it was that he and Church produced a 

 reduction-product of dinitronaphthalene, the first of 

 all the azo-dyes, though the true nature of this substance 

 only became known to the discoverers seven years 

 later, when the first patent was taken out claiming a 

 sulphonated-azo colour in 1863. The discovery of 

 Mauve was an accident. Perkin, in the Hofmann 

 Memorial Lecture, has told us how he was " ambitious 

 enough to wish to work on this subject of the artificial 

 formation of natural compounds," and it was in an 

 attempt to prepare quinine artificially that he got " a 

 dirty reddish -brown precipitate." 



Nothing daunted, he tried again with aniline, and this 

 time obtained a very dark-coloured precipitate, which 

 was found on investigation to possess the properties of 

 a dye. The discovery of Mauve diverted Perkin from 

 the field of pure to that of industrial chemistrj'. He 

 left Hofmann's laboratory and, against his teacher's 

 advice, determined to set up a factory and prepare his 

 new dye on a commercial scale. It is hard to realise 

 to-day what this meant in 1856. Everj-thing was 

 pioneer work. The raw products had to be obtained 

 from coal tar on a manufacturing scale. The kind of 

 apparatus and machinery had all to be invented. 

 This was the first artificial colour factory the world had 

 ever seen, and yet such was young Perkin's faith in his 

 discovery that he induced his father, not only to put 

 up the factory, but to sink practically all his capital in 

 an undertaking w-hich must have seemed to him little 

 short of sheer madness. A site was found at Greenford 

 Green, near Sudbury, and there, in June 1857, building 

 operations were commenced. Six months later the 



