April, 1931
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NICHOLS MEDAL AWARD John Arthur Wilson, of Milwaukee, Wis., was awarded the Nichols Medal for 1931 a t the meeting of the New York Section of the AMERICAN CHEMICALSOCIETYon March 13, 1931, in recognition of his outstanding achievement in colloid chemistry, applied particularly to leather and sanitation. Arthur E. Hill, chairman of the section, presided, and the medal was presented by J. G. Davidson, chairman of the jury of award. D. P. Morgan, Jr., secretary of the section, read an address by Clarke E. Davis on the life of the medalist, and Arthur W. Thomas gave an account of the medalist’s scientific accomplishments. The Nichols Medal is awarded annually by the New York Section to the author of a paper or papers published in any of
the SOCIE~TY’S journals during the preceding three calendar years which in the judgment of the jury will have an important influence in stimulating original research in chemistry. The complete list of medalists is as follows: 1903 E, B,Voorhees
1905 C. L. Parsons
i!: 2; g; i:1909 !i $: F: H, c. p. Weber L. H. Baekeland iiii ~ $ e ~ ~ and ~ & c. w. ‘ 1914 Moses Gomberg 1915 Irving Langmuir 1916 c. Hudson
s.
1918 T . B.Johnson 1920 Irving Langmuir 1921 G . N . Lewis 1923 Thomas Midgley Jr. 1924 1925 Charles E, c , Frank,in A. Kraus) 1926
Samuel C. Lind
lQZ7 1928 Hugh S. Taylor 1929 William L. Evans 1930 Samuel E . Sheppard 1931 John Arthur Wilson
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The Life of the Medalist Clarke E. Davis OHN ARTHUR WILSON was born in Chicago, August 16. 1890, and, after ten years, moved to Milwaukee. I n January, 1905, he was graduated from the grammar school there and, somewhat dissatisfied with school, he was desirous of going t o work. The laws of the State of Wisconsin at that time permitted a lad of fourteen t o go t o work if he so desired, and John Arthur so desired. He started upon a career in the Black Art, becoming first printer’s devil in charge of the Hell Box, then nearly everything else in turn, and finally became a journeyman compositor. During his period of apprenticeship he learned that he did not wish to be a printer, but found that he had an insatiable thirst for alchemy. He would read any book he could acquire that smelled of a laboratory, even though he had no idea what it was all about. A parson who was a dear friend of the family deplored seeing him a misfit and suggested that, since he was going to live in Baltimore, John Arthur should go with him and enter high school. This was no sooner said than done and he entered the Baltimore City College in September, 1908. The parson, as is the habit of some parsons, was a wanderer, and before Christmas John Arthur found himself attending Central High School In St. Louis. By the next fall he was attending Barringer High School in Newark, IC’. J. He was graduated there in June, 1911, winning a scholarship a t New York University. During the summer of 1911 he worked as chemist for the Edison Chemical Works a t Silver Lake, N. J. He spent only one year at New York University, but dabbled in chemistry courses of the entire curriculum while doing his freshman work. HE.was elected president of the local chemical society of the university, known as the Radioactive Society. Being a man of greater powers of emotion than of reasoning, he became a benedict a t the end of his freshman year and returned to Milwaukee, securing a job in the tanning business, more from necessity than choice. Being a voracious reader, he soon covered all of the not too voluminous literature on leather and leather chemistry and much of the more elementary literature of chemistry and physiology, Already in 1914 he had made a few rather important discoveries in tanning, interesting his firm so much that it was decided that it might be profitable to send him t o Leeds, England. Here he was to work with Professor Procter for two years with the idea of making him chief chemist and assistant production manager upon his return to Milwaukee.
He entered the University of Leeds as a post graduate in October, 1914, and in 1915 was given faculty standing with the title of honorary research assistant of the Procter International Research Laboratory. During this year Procter and Wilson worked out their theories of the gelatin-electrolyte equilibria. Upon his return, in 1916, he became chief chemist a t the Gallun tannery in Milwaukee and soon became inspired to build a real literature of !eather chemistry, starting out with about one hundred and fifty papers and culminating with a monograph. I n 1920 he organized the Leather Division of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY and served as its chairman until 1927. He is a past chairman of the Milwaukee Section of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETYand past president of the American Leather Chemists Association. He left the Gallun tannery November 1, 1929, to go into business for himself and to conduct the affairs of International Security Management, of which he was president. He organized the firm of John Arthur Wilson, Inc., Consulting Tanners and Chemists, of which he is president. This is a remarkable and enviable record for a man who is just past forty.
Scientific Accomplishments of the Medalist Arthur W. Thomas OHN ARTHUR WILSON has published approximately one hundred and fifty papers in the journals of pure and applied chemistry, the first one appearing in 1913; and in all but a half-dozen of these he is the senior author. These contributions involve new theoretical treatments and new experimental data on a wide variety of subjects in the domain of pure and applied colloid chemistry, and more specifically the following categories: General. Protein swelling, phase boundary equilibria, electrical charge a t certain interfaces, neutral salt effects, proteolytic enzyme action, emulsions, and bacteria. Tamzing. Unhairing of hides with alkalies, sulfides, and enzymes, bating with enzymes, hide pickling, chrome, vegetable, and other tannages, fat-liquoring of leather, dyeing and finishing of leather, the chemical and mechanical properties of leathers and analytical methods, particularly a rational method for the determination of vegetable tannin. Sewage. Mechanism of activated sludge process and the dewatering of the sludge.
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Added t o this imposing list of journal articles there is his book lems involved in the development and operation of the activatedon “The Chemistry of Leather Manufacture,” No. 12 in the sludge sewage-disposal plant of the City of Milwaukee. The American Chemical Society Monograph Series, first published city employed Doctor Wilson as research director in this work in 1923 as a single volume; I n 1928 Volume I of a completely from 1920 to 1930. In this capacity he brought into action the rewritten edition appeared, followed by Volume I1 in 1929. fundamental laws of colloid chemistry and the physical chemistry From the point of view of the Muence upon the broader as- of the proteins with most gratifying results. When his services pects of chemistry, Doctor Wilson’s outstanding papers were upon were enlisted in 1920, the first experimental operating unit of the swelling of protein jellies, a theory of colloids, and the ad- this disposal plant was faced with what appeared to be a hopeless sorption formula. His contribution to the swelling of protein problem. The sludge was a slimy, jelly-like mass, which could jellies, published in 1916, was in collaboration with the late not be filtered and from which the removal of water could be accomplished only a t prohibitive cost. H e n r y Richardson Procter, proD o c t o r Wilson showed that this fessor of leather chemistry at the slimy sludge could be dewatered by University of Leeds. This paper a simple chemical treatment folaccounted for the swelling phel o w e d b y vacuum filtration and nomena of gelatin in the presence of d r y i n g . The chemical treatment acid and of neutral electrolytes in a suggested by his store of fundaquantitative manner. It was the m e n t a l chemistry just mentioned first quantitative e x p l a n a t i o n of consisted in adding ferric chloride these phenomena and even the first to reduce the p H of the sludge t o use of the principle of the Donnan its isoelectric point of 3.4. A quadequilibrium made outside of Proruple reaction was shown to be fessor Donnan’s laboratory. involved: (1) an oxidation effect, The contribution on the theory (2) a tanning action on the protein of colloids (1916) published indem a t t e r , (3) a halogen effect inpendently by Doctor Wilson and creasing the capacity of the protein the paper on “Colloidal Phenomena matter for iron, and (4)a p H effect and the Adsorption Formula” pubreducing the sludge to the isoeleclished in collaboration with Mrs. t r i c c o n d i t i o n . All four effects Wilson in 1918, together with the contribute to the reduction of the first mentioned, started the line of attraction of the solid matter for reasoning which Jacques Loeb develwater. oped into his modem theory of the I n this work Doctor Wilson has, behavior of proteins. w i t h t h e collaboration of willing In the field of leather chemistry, assistants, discovered and published his contributions all show the fundanew information on many chemical mental discipline of the mathephases of the problems involved in matical and quantitative scientific this huge plant, which now separates method of attack revealed in his daily 100 million gallons of sewage early contributions t o general chemiinto pure water and 100 tons of cal knowledge. I n a methodical dry, granular fertilizer which sells a t m a n n e r h e elucidated and gave about twenty dollars per ton. freely t o the leather industry the J o h n Arthur Wilson Receiving the Nichols Medal from J. G. Davidson Following the publication of the reasons and methods for improvef i r s t e d i t i o n of his book, “The ments for many complicated oDerations touching every phase of the tanning process already men- ‘Chemistrv of Leather Manufacture,” there appeared in rapid _. tioned in this address. H e made extensive additions to the litera- succession translations into German, French, and Russian, a ture of animal skin and its functions, showing the variations in striking proof of the outstanding merit of this treatise on leather different animals of different ages according to the location on the chemistry. Now that the second two-volume edition has apskin, feeding, and climatic conditions under which they lived. peared in English, editions in Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, and He named the thermostat layer of the skin and demonstrated the Japanese are being contemplated. I believe that i t may properly part it plays in keeping the body temperature constant, in colds, be said that Doctor Wilson’s book has become the world’s standin making hair straight or curly, and sundry other effects as well ard in its field. It is not a collection of recipes and factory methas those bearing upon the properties of leather made from the ods, but is devoted entirely to a systematic discussion of the chemiskin. I n this work he developed a highly refined technic for cal fundamentals of the materials and operations involved in the leather-tanning process. making fine sections and photomicrographs of skin. I n recognition of his scientific attainments, Doctor Wilson has In 1924 Doctor Wilson started the first comprehensive measurement of the properties of leather. He showed how the area been invited many times to address various scientific bodies. The change of leather with relative humidity could be reduced one- University of Chicago appointed him t o give a series of lectures third by the proper selection of tanning material. He developed in 1925. Columbia University appointed him t o lecture on his the technic and made the first measurements of the ventilating field in a series on contemporary chemistry in the summer of properties of leather, and showed how leather could be made t o 1926. H e was awarded the Charles Frederick Chandler Medal allow moisture t o pass from the inside of a shoe 80 per cent as by Columbia University in 1928. Lehigh University awarded fast as from a bare foot and still have the shoe water-repellent him the honorary degree of doctor of science in 1929, and now the from the outside. The relation of strength and stretch of leather William H. Nichols Medal is added to his trophies. to controllable factors was demonstrated by him, as well as new Surely his is a glorious record of achievement, all accommethods for measuring and controlling temper, resilience, porosity, plished while carrying out the full-time duties of chief chemist and density of leather. in the tannery of the A. F. Gallun & Sons Company, in MilI n the field of sewage disposal he applied himself to the prob- waukee.
