April, 1931
I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
435
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.
