PUBLISHED
BY
THE
AMERICAN
CHEMICAL
SOCIETY
0
HARRISON
E.
HOWE,
EDITOR
EDITORIALS Laboratories Less Restricted
Rearranging t h e World
0 PRODUCE on our own soil plants from other FTER several months of work and waiting, Order P 62 T climes is a very old project and many scientists A assigning a preference rating of A-5 to the acquisihave made substantial contributions to our national tion of scarce materials required by the manufacturers of the necessary laboratory chemicals and equipment was signed on November 15 to become immediately effective. This preference rating order together with the previous Order P42 clears away potential difficulties and actual limitations that were beginning to hamper the smooth working of the various laboratories of the United States. This is not the place in which to discuss the details, the technicalities, the various considerations which have delayed these two orders. It is perhaps enough to know that now the equipment and reagents required to pursue the type of work in which all laboratories are engaged have been given d e h i t e standings by the two orders-A-2 for the research laboratories and A-5 for others. But it does seem strange to many of us that there should have been all this delay. It is conceded that the war involves the direct application of science to a greater degree than previous conflicts, but apparently those controlling the flow of raw materials required for production overlooked the role played by the laboratories. This is odd, particularly since all manufacturers confronted with the major task of converting peacetime to wartime activities have acquired a growing appreciation of the part science plays in their normal routine and rely more and more upon it for their new products and general advance. Fortunately, successive efforts made to inform officials as to the part played by the scientist and the necessity of suitably equipping him for his work have a t last borne fruit, though not before considerable inconvenience and much anxiety have been experienced. A laboratory need cannot always be foreseen in a way to enable orders to be placed for future delivery. More frequently a problem arises for the solution of which something new in equipment or reagents is needed instanter. This is a circumstance not contemplated in the average priority consideration. Laboratories must keep their orders within actual requirements, but conformity with the new order imposes no great hardship, and to a considerable degree the action taken can be regarded as recognition of the importance of such organizations.
wealth and resources by such activities. One after another they have gone into overseas countries and searched for new varieties of, say, wheat, sugar cane, and lilies, that might do better in a new environment than the plants we are already cultivating. The hybridizer has done much the same sort of thing in his effort to develop a plant that will resist this or that unfavorable condition and provide us with an increased yield or a more perfect crop. This kind of work has gone steadily forward in and out of season, during war, and in the extended periods of peace which the country has enjoyed. But under present war conditions even more of this type of work is going on and decentralization in the cultivation of botanicals has become attractive. We read with interest that the California State Experiment Station nurseries now include cork oak seedlings and that attention has again been turned to the guayule, a species of rubber bush with which experiments on a commercial scale were conducted years ago in California. We learn that 10,000 cork oak seedlings will be distributed without charge to persons showing that they can plant and care for 50 or more trees. As reported in the News Edition [19, 256 (1941)], experiments already conducted in California show t h a t the State should be as successful in the production of cork as Spain and northern Africa. The story of guayule has long since been published in these pages, but the times again call it to mind. Word comes that Guatemala may soon compete with the Orient not only as a source of tea but of quinine, the latter long of much concern to the United States. Having originated in the Western Hemisphere, it is interesting to learn that, aided by United States capital, large plantations of cinchona trees have been set out in Guatemala, and there is every reason to believe that they will supply the highest quality of quinine. The variety of climate, altitude, and soils offered by the Americas must be encouraging to our fellow scientists who are engaged in this work. The chemists will be glad to offer them any assistance of which they are capable. 1463
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INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
What? No Cellophane? T MAY not make a noticeable difference this
I
Christmas, but an order restricting the use of cellophane and similar transparent materials derived from cellulose which has been issued by the Office of Production Management to conserve such raw materials as chlorine, phenol, and glycerol used in their manufacture will produce many a surprise among the consuming public. Gift wrappings, soda straws, cosmetics, soaps, and hardware are a few of the many items affected by a limitation order recently issued. These uses of a modern material beneficial and helpful in many instances are probably unimportant to the ultimate consumer, but they help to illustrate how the war is turning back the clock. Again and again the limitation in manufactured goods and substitutes suggested are equivalent to returning to methods followed one or two decades ago. Just as certain raw materials are essential to modern warfare and defense, so they seem necessary for the new products that have been developed to advance what we have been pleased to call civilization. In such cases defense and warfare come first. Eventually we can return to these improved items of commerce that we must now forego. Is it too much to hope that when that time comes there may be added as a result of work done during the emergency still newer and better things that will bring comfort, happiness, and safety to a peacetime existence2
National Health is something cheerful about finding in any THERE situation the likelihood of an advantage partially to offset the many disadvantages that always appear. There is nothing cheerful about the necessity of preparing for an offense on a large scale. It smacks too much of the failure of our civilization to learn, not only from the past but even from its own experience within a generation. However, in the operation of the Selective Service System, Colonel Rountree, chief of its medical division, reports that only about 50 per cent of the men examined for training are physically and mentally qualified for general military service. That in itself is discouraging, but the fact that it has become known helps and the opportunity thus afforded to do something concrete to improve the physical condition and the national health of the people is encouraging. This might not be the case but for the considerable number of these young men who can undoubtedly be helped to attain a much better condition of physical well being. For example, defective teeth account for 20.9 per cent of the rejections, eyes require treatment in 13.7 per cent, ailments of the cardiovascular system 10.6 per cent, and so on down to smaller and smaller numbers, with tuberculosis only 2.9 per cent.
Vol. 33, No. 12
While the survey reported covers only a small percentage of the men examined and should not be construed as a final determination of the general health of registrants or of the principal causes of their rejection for military service, nevertheless there is ample evidence that the Xation is confronted with an opportunity to carry out some program for better gencral health. Cooperation of the professions, citizens, and particularly of the individual can bring this about and yield some return on today’s efforts.
A Lifetime of Change FEW days ago we received from one of our readers A page of the NEWSEDITION, Volume No. 19, of October 10, 1939. The page carried a dis621
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cussion called “Jitters”, and our reader’s comment was “What a lifetime of change in less than two yearsl” And the reader was right, for on that page we had set forth in some detail reasons why the chemical industry among others had no desire for war, had a true appreciation of how devastating war is in upsetting normal ways of life and of industry, what it does to taxes, change caused in manufacturing, and the cessation of constructive research and other work. It concluded with a quotation from President Roosevelt himself, who said on September 3, 1939, “As long as it remains within my power to prevent, there will be no blackout of peace in the United States.” The extent to which things can change and with what rapidity, even though the fundamental facts upon which the “Jitters” discussion was based remain unchanged, is all too well known. But one does not need to go as far back as 1939 for such evidence. I n January of this year an informative round-table discussion was held in Tulsa on the place of the petroleum industry in national defense. Experts pointed out there would be no difficulty in supplying the country, all parts of it, with the petroleum products it might need and that the storage and distribution of oil and gasoline would not present a serious problem. And yet this is one of the pressing questions, and many who can readily use other means of transportation than automobiles are wondering about fuel oil for our homes and trying to decide with which of the neighbors we might prefer to live, combining our supplies. Perhaps if we will pay more attention to maintaining a continual state of preparedness, our country will not be faced with such fundamental changes. At any rate the tempo will be slower. We associate prosperity with capacity employment. The principal function of new industries is to provide work. In the past work was provided by the wilderness, the opening of the frontiers. Today we must provide work by creating new industries. In research We have the meanS.-wALDE&fAR KAEMPFFERT
