COAL-TAR 63 



berries whenever He makes them, whatever may be the 

 law of the land. 



A similar instance occurred recently. The leading 

 manufacturer of grape juice was accused of adding an- 

 other coal-tar preservative, namely anthranilic acid, to 

 his bottled product. But this also turned out to be a 

 case of "natural adulteration," so to speak, for all 

 grapes of this species contain anthranilic acid; in fact, 

 that is what gives them their pleasant flavour. 



We could not rule the coal-tar products, these ben- 

 zene compounds, out of our life if we wanted to, and 

 we certainly do not want to, for they furnish a large part 

 of the beauty and pleasure of the world, of the flavours 

 of its fruits, the perfumes of its flowers, the colours of 

 its plants. Yet you will now hear some foolish crafts- 

 man say that we ought to do away with aniline dyes and 

 go back to such good old vegetable colouring matters as 

 indigo and madder. But we can beat nature at making 

 these same things, as well as make others even more 

 beautiful that nature cannot make. 



In the incessant warfare between man and microbe 

 the human side received a powerful ally when coal-tar 

 came to its aid, because then for the first time man 

 could see his insidious foes. For thousands of years 

 man had seen men and children, the strongest of the 

 warriors and wisest of the elders, struck down by in- 

 visibles enemies against whom he had no weapons, for 

 he did not know what they were nor whence they came. 

 No wonder he thought such deaths were due to the un- 

 seen arrows of evil spirits. But by 1880 the bandage 

 was lifted from the eyes of man, for about that time 



