REPORT ON CHEMICAL LABORATORY 85 



power. The technology, then, of an inconspicuous substance, 

 if we may use the term, such as starch, becomes at once one 

 of the greatest problems in the whole field of economics, the 

 proper treatment of which depends upon the past achieve- 

 ments in the field of pure chemistry and progress to come in 

 that field. 



The development of paper from wood pulp is now a source 

 of great danger to our forests. The question of getting 

 pulp from straw and cornstalks for this purpose becomes, 

 therefore, an important one, in the solution of which the 

 prosperity of the country is intimately involved. 



The improvements of our textile fabrics, such as the manu- 

 facture of artificial silk, have great possibilities for advance- 

 ment. 



All the new processes for reproducing photographic pic- 

 tures are largely chemical problems, as are also coinage, 

 chemical assaying, and the whole domain of metallurgy. 



Coming now to the medical side of the question, we see at 

 once that the science of nutrition and the value of every dif- 

 ferent kind of food in the maintenance of health, and its 

 adaptation to disease, are all chemical problems, which are 

 becoming topics of increasing interest to those who are assist- 

 ing actively in the advance of practical medicine. The actual 

 control of the food supply is largely chemical, and the pure 

 food laws can be enforced only through chemistry. 



Of the many applications of chemistry to medicine, the 

 problem of immunity in its broadest sense is perhaps one of 

 the most important, and then we have also the problem re- 

 garding those diseases which are in the largest sense sys- 

 temic, like diabetes, gout, and some of the atrophies, and 

 even senility itself. It is possible even that the question of 

 the origin of cancer, one of the few diseases which has thus far 

 baffled research, and which so far as we know is probably not 



