A NALY T ICA L C HEIHIST RV September 1963, Vol. 35, No. 10
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY Director of Publication!;, Applied Journals, ACS, Richard L. Kenyon Director of Business Operations, Applied Journals, ACS, Joseph H. Kuney Executive Assistant to th,? Director of Publications, Applied Journals, ACS, Rodney N . Hader Assistant to the Directo- of Publications for Editorial Development, Applied Jountab, ACS, William Q. Hull Dzrector of Editorial Research, Applied Journals, ACS, Robert F. Gould Editor. LAWRENCE T.HALLETT
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EDITORIAL
Man’s Environmental Problems
IN
THE JULY-AUGUST ISSUE of World Health, Professor Rend Dubos of the Rockefeller Institute discusses “The Scientific Dreams of Man.” For ages imagination has been man’s only means of reaching out into space. Today, because of scientific research, it is no longer a dream. Man’s early discoveries were based largely upon his senses. He soon found, however, that there were many things to learn about his environment that required techniques and instruments to overcome the limitations of his senses. Thus man has entered the age of scientific research. He has contributed to his sense of security by discovering that inanimate objects behave in predictable ways both on earth and in the solar system. Man’s limitations have forced him in his research to use an analytical approach of degradation into simpler components in order to control the number of variables which contribute to the overall function under observation. The physics and chemistry of the inanimate have produced a remarkable chapter in man’s history; the application of physics and chemistry to living materials has also yielded much valuable information. However, as Prof. Dubos points out, many working in the field of natural phenomena are beginning to have serious doubts that the degradative analytical approach will yield much information about why man behaves as he does in his environment, and more important, how he may change himself or his environment t o achieve his purpose in life. We are entering here an area of psychology, philosophy, and ethics that will become extremely important in future research, but today has too many variables to be called scientific. Man’s understanding of himself may be severely limited because of his finite conception of his environment, an important part of which, like itself and the universe, is infinite. Certainly research in the future must be conducted in such a way that man is studied RS a whole being in his reactions and adaptations to his surroundings. There is no question that the whole organism functions so that the individual components are modified in their action with a synergistic effect. Man during the past 50 years has changed his environment; the air and the food he eats contain traces of harmful impurities. His mode of living and working has undergone radical change. It is possible that we are changing our environment faster than we can successfully adapt to it. The challenge for man in his research is to study himself and determine how best to develop his oneness with his world and even, the universe. Future research must give him a clue as to how t o adapt faster than in the past. The fact that man’s knowledge is increasing a t such a rapid rate that one can not now expect to graduate in the professions and continue successfully without returning to school for re-education is an example of how difficult it is for us to succeed in our new way of life. With all our Pcientific knowledge we still lack contentment, purpose, and the ability to live peacefully with our fellow man.
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