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LETTERS
Early Analytical Automation Sir: The article by H. M. Kingston (Anal. Chem. 1989, 62(24), 1381 A1384 A) brought back memories of the early 1950s. At that time, I would have had much interest in the proposed Consortium on Automated Analytical Laboratory Systems. Although I am now 96 and in the process of giving up my office, I still have some interest in the subject. As a member of ASTM Committee E-3 and a close watcher of Committee E-2 on atomic emission spectroscopy, I became interested in the efforts of the two Churchills, H. V. and J. R., to speed up the analysis of aluminum alloys. Also, I had been suggesting to my junior students in chemical engineering a possible development of a balance that would stamp mass values, in indelible ink, in their laboratory notebooks. Several did report efforts in this direction after they joined industrial laboratories. In the course of preparing our reviews on molecular absorption spectroscopy, I noticed many abstracts on various kinds of automation and suggested to the editor the possibility of publishing a review of these developments. He agreed, and we published three reviews in 1950, 1951, and 1952. These were mostly written by my student, G. D. Patterson, Jr., who worked for Du Pont. As they did not see much advantage to the company in continuing the reviews, we did no more. Later, I published a report on automation (Anal. Chem. 1958,30(12), 25 A). I also gave a talk entitled "Analytical Automations" to a number of ACS local sections. I tried to get the Chur-
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418 A • ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 62, NO. 7, APRIL 1, 1990
chills to prepare a film showing what they were doing. I recall a talk by H. V. Churchill in which he stated that an automatic method's primary use is in highly repetitive work, such as analyzing blood and urine in the Mayo Clinic laboratories. As an indication of my practical interest in the subject, we purchased the first General Electric recording spectrophotometer in 1934. I had started our course on physicochemical methods in 1921. (I never use the word instrumental as I consider all measurement instrumental.) My student H. W. Swank in 1936 devised the first manual calculator for determining tristimulus values from spectrophotometric curves. Then, around 1960, at a Pittsburgh Conference, I persuaded Howard Cary to try to make an instrument with which one could determine either absorbance or transmittance. Six months later he wrote that he had solved the problem, and we bought what I presume was the first Model 10-11. I am just completing the transfer of my historical collection of some 20 photometers (both filter and spectrophotometers) to the Instrument Museum of the University of Cincinnati. I should like to survive long enough to learn how the consortium develops. M. G. Mellon Professor Emeritus Analytical Chemistry Department of Chemistry Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907
