An August Story for Chemists
There are apocryphal accounts suggesting that chemistry might have begun on three islands not far off the mainland of southeast China, sometime before 1000 B.C. According to the legend, early visitors t o these islands found there a community of immortals and the drug that prevents death. Each visitor to the islands mas allowed t o return to the mainland with three gifts of the gods. Most selected wealth, happiness, and a one-thousand-year supply of the drug that prevents death. On one occasion, however, a visitor chose omniscience, a garment known as the lucky raincoat, and the recipe for preparing the drug that prevents death. The gods were so startled and confounded by this unique selection that after granting the visitor his requests and sending him on his way, they never again allowed a mortal to set foot on the mystic islands. During the centuries that followed, the visitor, whom some have called Hua Hsueh, prudently shared with men of all civilizations small portions of all the knowledge of the world which he carried in a massive scroll attached to a sacred staff. To do this, he frcquently made use of the lucky raincoat which, when worn, allowed him to perform good deeds without bcing discovered. However, he never revealed to anyone the recipe for the drug that prevents death. Legend has it that in about 1000 B.C. he disclosed to the daughter of a Chinese ruler the proccdure for making rice wine. She offered the wine to the Emperor who, after drinking it with delight, predicted that the throne of some future emperor surely would be lost by his indulging too freely in drink. Accordingly, the Emperor banished the discoverer and prohibited the new beverage; whereupon the Chinese, in an accolade to posterity, made wine the national beverage for the next thousand years. Some have said that it was Hua Hsueh who first suggested to the Pythagoreans in about 440 B.C. that all things are composed of numbers in the sense of indivisible units, and who, about 40 years later persuaded Demoeritus to write, "By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color, but in truth there are only atoms and the void." No doubt Hua led Democritus to conclude that everything, including the soul, was composed of atoms, and to coin the term "soul atoms." Soul atoms, according to
Ieditorially speaking
Democritus, aere the noblest and most wonderful of all atoms and they exerted different effects in different body organs. Thus thc head was the scat of reason; the heart, of anger; the liver, of desire. Unfortunately, Hua Hsueh has not seen fit to divulge any further information about these interesting particles. It also is allcgcd that men like Gcher, Berzelius, Lavoisier, Wohler, KekulB, van't Hoff, G. N. Levis, Dehye, Dirac, Pauling, Eyring, Calvin and Woodward all have heard from Hua Hsueh in one way or another. Rumor is that all who believe in him and give him copious quantities of wine when hc requests them havn no need of any other patron. Nevertheless, those who study the activities of Hua are becoming somel~hatconcerned that the frequency of his revelations may be diminishing. Since so much appears to depend on these revelations, it is tempting to ponder the probable causes of this decline in vigor. With so many more ~ o r k e r sin the vineyard, and so much more wine available today, one wonders if perhaps Hua or the workers or both have imbibed too much for successful communication; rhether Hua may be getting tired of the whole thing or possibly disillusioned with vhat he sces; if perchance the drug that prevents death is losing its potency; or if, perhaps, the scroll of knowledge is nearing its final folds. Personally, v e think the explanation lies in events that transpired on the mystic islands after Hua left. According to the lrgcnd, the gods were in disagreement on the wisdom of giving a mere mortal as much power and as much freedom as Hua vould have xvith his scroll of all the world's kno\~ledgc,his lucky raincoat, and an unlimited supply of the drug that prevents death. Therefore, they agreed to assign a young female member from among their number to monitor Hua's activities and to report hack at one thousand year intervals. The understanding mas that any negative report vould mean immediate removal of Hua's extraordinary gifts. The third report is due any time now, and the spcculation is that Hua is spending all his energies trying to seduce the young goddess in the hope that this d l encourage her to turn in a favorable report, thereby giving him another millenium to amuse himself vith chemists and others who fancy themselves great thinlcrrs. ~ T L
Volume 49, Number 8, August 1972
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