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Pharmaceuticals Analysis of Pharmaceutical Products Quality control, drug metabolism studies, preparative separations, and drug stability studies are important separation and quantitation tasks that can be effectively completed by LC. CIRCLE 239 O N READER SERVICE CARD
Obtaining Kilos of Pure Compounds Pharmaceutical chemists use preparative LC to purify enantiomer intermediates. Only 5 % of the time previously required by open column chromatography was needed.
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Finished Product Assays for Cosmetics and Toiletries Kolmar Laboratories uses LC to improve speed, accuracy and specificity in finished product assays of cosmetics and toiletries. CIRCLE 241 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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was a classic: " T h e Chemical Analysis of Things as They Are" (3). Much of his own research had been done prior to 1929, and most of his later papers appeared in the Bureau of Standards Journal of Research, which started in 1928. Dr. Edward Wichers, who had also worked for many years a t the Bureau, recalls t h a t Lundell while serving on the advisory board h a d expressed concern t h a t too many of the articles being accepted did not deal with analytical chemistry. T h e preface of Lundell's book "Applied Inorganic Analysis" (with W. F . Hillebrand, 1929) contained the statement, "After all is said and done a good analyst is primarily a chemist who can quantitatively manufacture pure chemicals." One wonders what he would think today, when most separations are chromatographic, most detection and determination methods are physical, a n d authors have difficulty in getting a paper p a s t A N A L Y T I C A L C H E M I S T R Y ' S rev-
iewers if it has much to d o with simple chemistry! While Lundell's statement does accurately reflect the situation a t t h a t time, he was also alert to progress in new directions. I remember hearing him speak around 1936 of the friendly competition between spectroscopists and chemists t o see who could determine the lowest trace concentrations of elements in rocks, ores, metals, or plant residues. Diphenylthiocarbazone had just opened new possibilities for trace analysis, and other new reagents were being introduced. In our laboratories t h e situation was not so much competition as collaboration. As either group made progress, it helped t o confirm what the other group h a d already attained and to stimulate further efforts. We chemists often worked hard to analyze mixtures t h a t the spectroscopists could use as standards. T o summarize the state of analytical chemistry during 1929-39, titrimetry was approaching its peak, with adequate indicators, a variety of useful reagents, t h e glass electrode, a n d many potentiometric methods. Yet to become popular were functional group analyses and the widely applicable Karl Fischer reagent. Classical gravimetry was on a high plateau, with improved understanding of coprecipitation phenomena and extensive usage of micromethods, b u t it would gradually lose out t o faster procedures. Colorimetry, having seen great advances in reagents, was being replaced by filter photometry and simple spectro-
1204 A • ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 50, NO. 13, NOVEMBER 1978
photometry, though the latter would not attain full utility until the improvement of instrumentation. Heyrovsky's polarograph was attracting attention. T h e known forms of chromatography, mainly liquid-solid, were rudimentary. Emission spectrography had reached a high plane, b u t awaited development of the direct reader. Radiochemistry was only in its infancy. Except for vacuum tube apparatus, the bulk of the electronic revolution was still t o come. A N A L . E D . adequately reflected current progress in all of those fields. Where it may have failed, and indeed where most practicing and teaching chemists failed, was in not recognizing the developments t h a t were being started by physicists. One of these was mass spectroscopy, which with improved apparatus was beginning t o be used for atomic weight determination and t h e identification of isotopes. T h e work was being reported in physical journals, which were seldom studied by analytical chemists. Similarly, work with infrared radiation was published in optical journals. T o this writer it seems t h a t t h e main contributions of analytical chemists of those days lay in using whatever means they had to learn as much as possible about all kinds of materials. In doing so, they and their contemporary engineers and scientists were able t o bring about vast improvements in the properties of alloys, cement, and rubber. They learned about both beneficial and harmful effects of many inorganic elements and compounds in foods and water. Chemical process control was greatly improved. Knowledge of natural substances, including petroleum, fats, proteins, wood, etc., was increased even under great difficulties. T h e ANALYTICAL E D I T I O N played its p a r t in promulgating information about new procedures, apparatus, a n d results as they became available. Even had it not fared so well in later years, its first editor could justifiably take pride in what was accomplished a t the beginning. In closing I would like again to pay tribute to all the editors, Howe, Murphy, Hallett, and Laitinen, and t o their loyal staff members. References (1) F . J. Van Antwerpen, Science, 97, 182 (1943). (2) M. T . Bogart, Chem. Eng. News, 2 1 , 678 (1943). (3) G.E.F. Lundell, Ind. Eng. Chem., Anal. Ed., 5,221 (1933).
