September 27, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



389 



In this field a battle is raging between 

 chemical industry and nature, a battle 

 which does honor to human genius. Up to 

 now the products prepared from coal tar 

 have almost always been triumphant. I 

 do not need to remind you of the various 

 victories; but it is possible that these may 

 prove to have been Pyrrhic victories. A 

 great authority on organic industries con- 

 sidered recently what would happen in 

 case, for any reason, there were a rapid 

 increase in the price of coal tar and con- 

 sequently of the substances contained in it. 

 He pointed out the inevitable effect of this 

 on the coal tar industries. "We all remem- 

 ber with admiration the story of the great 

 difficulties that had to be met in the choice 

 of the raw material for the production of 

 indigo. It was necessary finally to use 

 naphthalene because toluene could not be 

 obtained in sufficient quantity. But it is 

 not merely through a rise in the price of 

 the raw materials that an industry may 

 suffer; it may be brought to a standstill 

 by a diminished interest and activity in a 

 certain field of scientific study. It has 

 been thoroughly established that modern 

 industry is affiliated very intimately with 

 pure science; the progress of one deter- 

 mines necessarily that of the other. Now 

 the chemistry of benzene and its deriva- 

 tives does not constitute the favorite field 

 of research as it did during the second half 

 of the last century. The center of interest 

 is now to be found in the matters and prob- 

 lems connected with biology. Modern in- 

 terest is concentrated on the study of the 

 organic chemistry of organisms. This new 

 direction in the field of pure science is 

 bound to have its effect on the technical 

 world and to mark out new paths for the 

 industries to follow in the future. 



It is a fact that lately several organic 

 industries have been successfully devel- 

 oped, outside of the field of benzene and 



coal tar. There are flourishing industries 

 in essences and perfumes and in some alka- 

 loids, like coca. In these industries prod- 

 ucts, which plants produce in relatively 

 large amounts, are converted into products 

 of higher commercial value. For instance 

 everybody knows that essence of violet is 

 now made from citral contained in lemon 

 oil. This is a line along which we ought 

 to follow because we are certain of making 

 progress. It is to be hoped that in the 

 future we may obtain rubber commercially 

 in some such way. 



The question has still another side, 

 which I believe deserves your attention; 

 it concerns certain experiments recently 

 made by myself together with Professor 

 Ravenna at Bologna. It is not because we 

 have arrived at any practical results that 

 I refer to these experiments; but because 

 they show definitely that we can modify 

 to a certain extent the chemical processes 

 that take place during the life of the 

 plants. In a series of experiments made 

 in an effort to determine the physiological 

 function of the glucosides, we have suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining them from plants that 

 usually do not produce them. We have 

 been able, through suitable inoculations, to 

 force maize to synthesize salicine. More 

 recently, while studying the function of 

 the alkaloids in the plants, we have suc- 

 ceeded in modifying the production of 

 nicotine in the tobacco plant, so as to ob- 

 tain a large increase or a decrease in the 

 quantity of this alkaloid. This is only a 

 beginning, but does it not seem to you that, 

 with well-adapted systems of cultivation 

 and timely intervention, we may succeed in 

 causing plants to produce, in quantities 

 much larger than the normal ones, the 

 substances which are useful to our modern 

 life and which we now obtain with great 

 difiieulty and low yield from coal tar? 

 There is no danger at all of using for in- 



