VOLUME 24 NUMBER6
-1ndus t r i a l AND E N G I N E E R I N G Chemistry
JUNE 1932
J
HARRISONE. HOW, EDITOR
The Editor’s Point of View
A
POINT OF 1-IEW. In several instances %hen the medical profession began to regard a type of disorder as a symptom rather than a disease, progress was made in the treatment and both cause and effect reduced or eliminated. We can recall, for example, when headaches were quite prevalent. After it was realized that the) nere a symptom, and i he causes discovered, the headaches disappeared. \$-e wonder if this may not be the case with the niajority of common colds. This problem is so complex that, when offered funds for research by the Chemical Foundation, Inc., some members of the medical profession declined to undertake so unpromising a research. May it not be that a large number, if not the majority, of colds result either from foci of infection, such as tonsils, sinus. teeth, and similar seats of these disturbances, from a relatively acid condition (sf the system, or from a decrease in the defenses of the body such as might be brought about by insufficient vitamins? -it any rate, we have known of a case or two where chemists have held these views, have had themselves examined and checked, have thereby located the cause of their troubles, and have then proceeded to eliminate them. One man found that it was vitamin A deficiency which made him susceptible, availed himself of one of the modern preparations for acquiring this vitamin in concentrated form, immediately overcame his cold, since which time, despite an effort to acquire another, he has been unsuccessful. While vitamins may not be an anti-infective agent, it has been suggested, in an editorial appearing in the Journal of fhe American AUedical .4ssociafion last October, that infection may follow the weakening of the tissues, and it may be due to the breakdown of the local tissue defenses where a vitamin -4deficiency occurs. Vitamin D, so far as known, is not a protective agent against colds, except quite indirectly, but it does have enormous value in helping to maintain normal health. Proper air and exercise, diet, and the newer knowledge of nutrition are important health factors. -4nd now the facility with which preparations of certain vitamins may be had, the disinfecting and other prophylactic agents available, and the modern methods of diagnosis would seem to promise succes5 in decreasing 599
losses in time and efficiency on account of the common cold. Should we not change our point of view and regard these nuisances primarily as indicators of abnormal conditions, rather than as diseases of themselves?
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R
EPE-4TING HISTORY. There is some encouragement, if not immediate comfort, to be derived from the fact that in nearly every human activity history constantly repeats itself. We have lately seen an interesting graph found in 1902 in an old desk which had not been disturbed for thirty-five or forty years. This chart consisted of three horizontal lines, upon which years had been noted. One line indicated past and future panics: the center line, years of hard times and low prices, time to buy; and the third row, years of high prices and the time to sell stocks. The first dates occur early in the nineteenth century and the prediction goes on until late in the twentieth. The times %-ehave experienced were predicted with unusual accuracy; the graph serves to emphasize the recurring cycles. There has been reprinted rather widely an editorial from Harper’s Weekly of October 10, 1857, which might well have been written in our current year. A portion follows. “It is a gloomy moment in history. Not for many years-not in the lifetime of most men who read this paper-has there been so much grave and deep apprehension. In our own country there is universal commercial prostration, and thousands of our poorest fellow citizens are turned out against the approaching winter without employment.” In the early eighteen hundreds books and pamphlets were written, advocating some of the same measures that are urged today and criticizing conditions so comparable to our own as to be startling. For that matter, history records seasons of good times and hard times for centuries past. The important point is that depressions have always passed, and still better times have come again. This may not be much solace to the man who is unemplojed, but it should give courage to carry on a little longer and for all of us to do our very best in an optimistic frame of mind to help in \Thatever emergency mal nou confront us.
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INDUSTRIAL
AND ENGINEERIXG
R
ESEARCH RISKS DEMAND HIGH RETURN ON CAPITAL. Profit from research must be prospectively very high, indeed, to warrant commercial development. This is convincingly shown by President Redman in the addresses which he has been giving before many of the local sections of our SOCIETY.The set of curves which he has presented on these occasions, to which we have already made editorial reference, makes clear a principle which few investigators have thoroughly appreciated in the early part of their career. We refer to the necessity for high percentage profit in order to attract capital. President Redman’s curves give a striking graphical comparison of financial return on funds used for bond investment, for moderately profitable industrial activities returning, say, twelve and one-half per cent, and for the development of research. They illustrate why the early period of risk during development and exploitation necessarily deters the investment of funds unless the later profit promises to be much higher than from nearly any other source. They show not only how a series of successful investigations, developed one after the other, may result in the investment of much new money, but also that there is a considerable delay before the liquidating value of the enterprise will equal that of an ordinary five per cent bond investment. Every member of our SOCIETY who has an opportunity to hear President Redman-and all will wish that they might do so-should apply some of these principles to his own undertakings, and should test his theory that a result of research to be attractive to the investor should promise a high percentage profit when it has first attained successful commercialization. Applying such a test, it will be evident why many projects that .seem to their proponents to be kery successful have not attracted industrial management or attained prompt application in industry. A study of this situation will do much to offset the dissatisfaction with boards of directors which sometimes enters the minds of scientific men when their results are not given as rapid application as these ambitious investigators would like.
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OBILE FACTORIES. One of the worries in investment comes from a realization that changes in market, in supply of raw materials, in tax or labor conditions, and in transportation may make it more desirable to have a factory in some other locality. But it is so dificult to move a plant that owners must either elect to erect a new one in a place where conditions may likewise change, or find ways of overcoming handicaps that have developed a t the old site. Fortunately, this industrial hazard is not common where a sufficiently careful analysis has preceded plant location. However, the mobile fac-
CHEMISTRY
Vol. 24, No. 6
tory offers advantages, especially to some units of the food industry. The introduction and development of quick-freezing processes has brought us an opportunity for a mobile plant which may have a very beneficial result for certain types of agriculture. Notwithstanding. the progress made, it is doubtless safe to say that quickfreezing is still in the pioneer stage, and yet we have seen and probably used frozen fresh fruits and vegetables, poultry, meat, and fish. Nature has a way of bringing a series of changes in agricultural crops. A superabundance of peaches in Florida or Delaware does not necessarily mean a bumper crop in Michigan or California. Then there are crops which begin with early harvests in the South and continue right on through the country until Canada is reached on the north. We expect to see a development of the mobile plant idea where small units can be quickly transported to the most favorable locality in a given year, or follow a schedule about the country as this or that crop reaches the optimum condition for preservation by such treatment. We recognize that some products are not as yet so successfully treated by this as by other processes. However, there remains a number of important places for application. This form of the decentralization of industry offers much in the proper utilization of food crops at their best and a way of preserving and tiding over the surplus from one bumper crop to the next. We trust it may also prove a means of still further avoiding agricultural losses and lead to a better stabilization of such markets, with mutual benefit to producer and consumer.
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ILD LEGISLATION. The need for eternal vigilance is well illustrated by a bill recentllintroduced in the legislature of the State of New York. This sought to amend the penal law relating to the manufacture, sale, and use of certain chemical agents in gas, liquid, or solid form, so as to protect persons and property against the use of irritants, veaicants, lachrymators, sternutators, and screening smokes as classified by the Chemical Warfare Service. While the intent of the proposed bill was doubtless constructive, it is evident that, were it to become law, the manufacturer and merchant of such chemicals would be held liable for the misuse of a number of important chemical materials, many of which are essential to industry generally and to the safeguard of public health. To make a merchant liable for the misuse of his merchandise by another party is both ineffective and unjust. It does not seem likely that such legislation could be considered seriously, let alone adopted as a law, yet this sort of thing is constantly arising in legislative halls and requires prompt educational effort to insure defeat.
