July 14, 1910] 



NATURE 



57 



An adequate historical survey of the modern science of 

 tinctorial chemistry has yet to be written. In his address 

 Prof. Meldola supplied one chapter of such history by 

 relating his personal experiences during the fifteen years 

 (1870-S5) he was directly connected with the manufacture 

 of synthetical dyestuffs. It is not possible to summarise 

 this historical survey in the space now at disposal, but 

 the hope may be e.xpressed that Prof. Meldola will find 

 opportunity to write the complete story of the art of dye- 

 ing. It would be equally as fascinating as his well-known 

 contributions to Darwinism. 



Having given his persona! reminiscences of the most 

 prolific period during the rapid modern development of the 

 industry, Prof. Meldola reverted to remote antiquity, and 

 summarised the ancient industrial history of dyeing as 

 described by the elder Pliny in his " History of Nature," 

 written about the beginning of the Christian era. Indigo 

 has probably been used by the natives of India for at least 

 3000 years, and by processes essentially the same as those 

 used to-day; in fact, until Perkin's discovery of the first 

 coal-tar dye in 1856, the art of dyeing has made com- 

 paratively little progress since the ancient Briton stained 

 his body with woad. 



The most important dye in ancient times was the 

 Tyrian purple, the use of which was at first confined by 

 law to the Imperial House — hence the e.xpression " born in 

 the purple." 



" The modern sequel to this ancient chapter of tinc- 

 torial art," said Prof. Meldola, " has been supplied by 

 P. Friedlander, who has extracted the colouring matter 

 from the Mediterranean Uurex brandaris, and has proved 

 it to be dibromindigo.' .And thus ancient observation, 

 which found practical application in the utilisation of a 

 certain mollusc as a source of colour, has led to a remark- 

 able biochemical discovery ; but we have had to wait some 

 2000 years for the answer to the question. What was the 

 purple dye of the ancients? Shall we have to wait another 

 2000 years for the answer to the question. How does 

 the living shell-fish synthesise the generator of dibrom- 

 indigo? " 



Much has been written, and many diverse opinions have 

 been expressed, as to the cause or causes of the loss of the 

 coal-tar colour industry to England. This has been variously 

 attributed to defects in our Patent Laws, to our heavy 

 excise duty on alcohol, and to our unsuitable industrial 

 conditions. In this matter Prof. Meldola sounded no un- 

 certain note. " The answer to this last question has been 

 staring us broadly in the face for over thirty years. It 

 is amazing that there should have ever been any doubt 

 about, or any other cause suggested than the true cause, 

 which is research — writ large ! The foreign manufacturers 

 knew what it meant and realised its importance, and they 

 tapped the universities and technical high schools, and they 

 added research departments and research chemists to their 

 factories, while cur manufacturers were taking no steps at 

 all, or were calmly hugging themselves into a state of 

 false security, based on the belief that the old order under 

 which they had been prosperous was imperishable. It is 

 true that when the effects of the new discoveries began to 

 make themselves felt, one or two factories did add a re- 

 search chemist to the staff, but the number and the means 

 of work were totally inadequate. I happened to be one 

 of them, and so I speak with some practical knowledge of 

 the conditions. We were but as a handful of light 

 skirmishers against an army of trained legionaries. What 

 could three or four — say half a dozen at a liberal estimate 

 — research chemists, working under every disadvantage, do 

 against scores, increasing to hundreds, of highly trained 

 university chemists, equipped with all the facilities for 

 research, encouraged and paid to devote their whole time 

 to research, and backed up by technological skill of the 

 highest order? The cause of the decline of our supremacy 

 in this colour industry is no mystery — it is transparently 

 nnd painfully obvious. In the early stages of its decadence 

 it had little or nothing to do with faulty patent legislation 



1 Btfl Bcr,, TQC9, vol. xlii., p. 765. For this research 12,000 molluscs 

 were extracted, the total yield of pure colour being o'4 grms. The dibromin- 

 digo is formed from its colourless generator, which is a vital pioduct of the 

 organism, by the action of lignt. The actual compound is shown — ^" •*" 

 € :61-dibromindigo, but the nature of the intermediate generate 

 yet been determined. 



be the 



NO. 2124, VOL. 84] 



or excise restrictions with respect to alcohol. The decay of 

 the British industry set in from the time when the Con- 

 tinental factories allied themselves with pure science and 

 the British manufacturers neglected such aid, or secured 

 it to an absurdly inadequate extent in view of the strength 

 of the competing forces." 



It still remains to inquire the reason for this different 

 attitude towards chemical research which was, and is still, 

 though in lesser degree, adopted by our manufacturers. 

 At the time we lost the industry the skill of the British 

 workman and the enterprise of the British manufacturer 

 were the admiration of the world, but the colour industry 

 did not develop here because our industrial leaders did not 

 lay the foundation of success by subsidising and cultivating 

 chemical research. Why? The answer to this question is 

 to be ultimately found in the utter lack of appreciation 

 of the value and importance of scientific method which 

 existed at that time amongst the public in this country. 

 It would then have been impossible to convince any body 

 of shareholders that it was a sound business proposition 

 to expend yearly many thousands of pounds in research 

 work the outcome of which was problematical. It would, 

 indeed, not be an easy task even in these more enlightened 

 davs. 



Walter M. Gardner. 



THE MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOL 

 CHILDREN.' 



T ESS than three years ago there did not exist a medical 

 -'-' department of the Board of Education. To-day there 

 lies before us a Blue-book, of 170 pages, detailing, with 

 much substance, the work undertaken or done to establish 

 and regulate the vast system of medical inspection of 

 schools and school children now operative over the length 

 and breadth of England. In modern social history no 

 movement has come so rapidly to maturity as the system 

 of inspection here, for the first time, placed in a con- 

 nected way before the general and official public. In a 

 lucid preliminary section Dr. Newman briefly sketches the 

 relation of our present developments to the efforts, both 

 here and on the Continent, towards a systematic medical 

 supervision of school children. " In the latter year (1865), 

 the report of the School Commission in Norway did some- 

 thing to bring the importance of school hygiene once more 

 before the general public, and in 1866 Hermann Cohn 

 undertook his classic researches into the eyesight of over 

 10,000 children at Breslau " (p. 2). Cohn, now dead, 

 was one of the venerable figures at the first International 

 Congress of School Hygiene at Nuremberg. He was still 

 full of energy and enthusiasm. Much occasional and dis- 

 connected local work followed, but " the Wiesbaden system 

 marks the introduction of a new conception and under- 

 standing of the problem. This system, which has been 

 widely adopted in Germany, treats the child as the centre 

 of interest and his well-being as the end of reform, to 

 which even the most satisfactory school environment is 

 only a means. . . . Throughout the German Empire a 

 large number of school doctors have been appointed, and 

 so some 350 towns and communities have undertaken in a 

 greater or less degree the work of medical supervision of 

 school life " (p. 4)— a good result since the first appomt- 

 ments in Wiesbaden in 1896. 



The English movement, though prepared for by many 

 workers in personal and public hygiene, dates from_ the 

 report of the Royal Commission on Physical Training 

 (Scotland) in 1903. Dr. Newman does not make it per- 

 fectly clea? why, at this particular juncture in British 

 history, such a report should have been called for ; blit 

 there is no doubt that the Commission arose out of the 

 revelations of physical inefficiency made during the great 

 South African war, particularly at the recruiting stations. 

 There was then a rising wave of opinion on the need 

 for better physical training in the early stages of hfe 

 Incidentallv, and, as it were, casually, the supreme need 

 for medical inspection was revealed, and, up to date, tiin. 



1 Board of Education. Annual Report for 1908 of the Chief Met'ical 

 Officer of the Board of Education. Pp. 170- Cd. 4986. (London : Eyre 

 and Spottiswoode, 1910.) Price S^if. 



