INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY PUBLISHED
BY
THE
AMERICAN
CHEMICAL
SOCIETY
0
HARRISON
E.
HOWE,
EDITOR
EDITORIALS Foreign Control OT until after the United States entered the World War did we begin to learn to what extent indi-' viduals and corporations in other lands exercised control over American products and some processes operated here. This control and its exercise in the effort to prevent the full use of our facilities and resources caused the Alien Property Custodian to take steps which led to the formation of the Chemical Foundation, Inc. It was not to be expected that the owners of the property thus acquired for the benefit of the United States would be willing to undergo a repetition of the experience. Consequently, various plans have been set up and put into operation intended by the legal mind to make difficult or impossible a similar transfer of property should the occasion arise. One device is for trustees to vote stock of undisclosed owners sometimes resident in different parts of the world. There are doubtless many other methods. Now, it is well to know the facts in advance of need. Senate Resolution 309, Seventy-Sixth Congress, third session, authorizes a committee to investigate interstate commerce conditions affecting national defense. The current impression is that this committee will begin its hearings shortly after the first of January, with the announced purpose of learning the ownership of stock, influence in, control of, and power over domestic business and production related to national defense, by any firm, person, partnership, association, corporation, foreign government, or agents or instrumentalities thereof. The Committee on Interstate Commerce or a duly authorized subcommittee thereof has been directed to make the investigation and to report. This committee can be of great value to the country if it strictly follows its terms of reference and does not conduct a little fishing expedition into the affairs of corporations having no bearing on the main question. Let us hope, in this instance at least, the investigation can be confined to those questions affecting national defense in fact.
N
Serious Monkey Business
M ONKEY
business is not a laughing matter when you can't bluy monkeys to save your life! For monkeys do save lives as test animals for new drugs before clinical tests are made on human beings. Only one monkey out of seven or eight imported into this 1541
country finds his way into a zoo or circus. All the others fulfill a useful purpose in scientific tests for which their similarity to humankind particularly adapts them. Normally, some 15,000 monkeys a year are brought to the United States from British India, which for humane reasons enforces an embargo on their export during the hot, rainy summer months. This spring shortage of ships and war restrictions prevented importers from bringing in enough to meet the demand over the summer. War continues to hamper imports. We face a serious shortage of animals because of the active development of new drugs. Especially important at present are the large numbers of derivatives of sulfanilamide, sulfapyridine, sulfathiazole, and others coming out of chemical research laboratories which must be tested on monkeys before they can be used clinically on human beings. The search for substitutes for quinine now being pushed by a committee of the National Research Council will also require large numbers of monkeys. Research on poliomyelitis is being impeded now for lack of monkeys, since no other test animal will contract the human form of this disease. The monkeys used are members of the family Mucaca rhesus and grow wild in the jungles of India. They are the kind commonly shown in zoos and circuses. Attempts to breed them elsewhere have failed, although efforts are now being made to grow them in Puerto Rico. Cebus monkeys, native to South and Central America, are not satisfactory test animals. Until rhesian monkeys are raised in or near the United States, manufacturers of synthetic drugs here must continue to watch and hope for imports.
Chemistry and Preparedness
CHEMISTS
and the chemical industry occupy such a place that a preparedness program without their contributions is impossible. The products of chemistry must be available in vast quantities if a defense program is to be effective. We can think of no basic industry, no article of commerce, no requirement of defense, that in some way does not involve the products of chemistry. Happily our position is vastly different than in 1917. Harry L. Derby, president of the American Cyanamid and Chemical Corporation, in a recent address made some comparisons. I n 1914 the chemical industry of the United States
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INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
represented an investment of $369,000,000, an annual business of $261,000,000, and had 47,681 employees. Its federal corporate taxes were about $3,000,000. In 1937 the investment had reached $2,000,000,000, the annual business $1,250,000,000, and there were 150,000 employed. Taxes were over $56,000,000. A t the present time it is estimated that $35,000,000 is spent annually for research and even more for development of new products. Today the chemical industry is far ahead of many other essential industries in its capacity for production and could provide increased facilities in a relatively short time if necessary. In addition to all this the chemist may be called upon for such a variety of work that plans should be made accordingly. Some two or three thousand active chemists hold reserve commissions, most of them in technical branches of the Army. Mobilization is based upon the use of these men in government service should they be required, and most of them have been trained for specific assignments in line with their professional work. This includes the manufacture of some materials which can be produced more economically and with greater safety in government arsenals, as well as possible assignment to plants for particular activities in connection with government orders. In many cases peacetime industry should be prepared to share its trained and experienced personnel with the Government and arrange to begin training those who might take the places of the men called. Reserve officers and consultants, who have given their time to prepare themselves to serve in case of need, should be able to return to their present employment after emergency service. To provide for their temporary absence would be expected of any progressive management. Should a real emergency arise beyond any now foreseen, a tremendous burden will fall on the chemical industry. The production of large quantities of material will mean careful checking a t every stage. Sometimes the discovery of substitutes and even research and development as new problems arise will claim attention. Many manufacturers know what they are expected to produce in a crisis and have carefully studied plans and specifications. All too often, commercial concerns have taken government contracts with the hope of beating down the quality of the article specified. Present specifications have been prepared and approved by the industry concerned with a view to production of articles of definite quality under wartime conditions. Military operations are based upon the receipt of adequate quantities of standard quality materials. The problem therefore becomes that of meeting specifications on large outputs. This program calls for the coordination of a program of manufacture with a plan for personnel. A part of present activity should certainly be the careful study of all the processes and products involved and planning the use of suitable personnel so that nothing will interfere with an even, steady flow of acceptable products.
VOL. 32, NO. 12
Many will remember the difficulties of the past when a large percentage of production in some cases had to be refused. To prevent these and other errors advance study of all factors is necessary and should be under way. We are hopeful that “It is later than you think” is an overstatement but we had better act and work as if it were an understatement.
Incomplete
BEGINNING
with the October 25 News Edition we print paragraphs from a report of the Scientific Advisory Service, maintained by several leading banks in an effort to spread the benefits of science as applied to industry. These statements of what industry now expects of research indicate much work remaining to be done; n some cases there may be a product or process ready but unknown to the inquirer, so that actual business may result. The change in attitude on the part of some banks and bankers is significant. Too often they have come into the management of an industry in financial distress, only to discontinue scientific work. Time and again the banker has looked upon research as an unjustifiable extravagance and a place where a few pennies might be saved. What was really needed in many instances was an increase in research and the application of its results to put a new breath of life into an exhausted enterprise. But here is a group of banks not only assisting their clientele to make the acquaintance of scientists who might help them, but obtaining from over a thousand industries indications of what they would like to have scientists do. More than that, this list of wants reaffirms a declaration often made by scientists that our work is incomplete. The world is far from finished. We have yet to find a scientist of experience who shares the defeatist attitude too common among economists, social workers, and politicians, who see no opportunity for youth. Youth itself’ does not always share this attitude. One out of many possible examples is presented by the efforts of some college boys who have provided themselves with good jobs by tapping a valuable natural resource that but few had noticed. Beginning in a very small way indeed, three young men have been collecting and preparing for sale sea moss which grows along the New England coast. A similar moss has been imported for years from Europe, but now we have a domestic source with prospects of higher quality as improvements are made in the old-fashioned method of handling it. By recognizing an opportunity, a good livelihood has been made when expected jobs did not materialize. Does it not seem strange that with so much to be done and so many anxious to do the work, present-day society finds so many obstacles to put in the way?
