The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-08-21
HOW ENGLAND SOLVED THE BIC
 PROBLEM OF SHORTAGE OF DYES

on the market in large quantities.
 The plant has run continuously ever since,. and the present requirements of the country for synthetic indigo are now being adequately met.
 This country, like the rest Of the world. was wholly dependent upon Germany for certain drugs of the highest importance in surgery, and therefore in war, among them the locan anaestheic novocain and the an- tiseptic tryaflavin.
 On October 4, 1916, the National Health Insurance commission asked for ten kilos of novocain, half to be delivered before the middle of No- vember and the balance by the end of the year. Already by the 31st of October ten pounds of novocain were ready for delivery This compli- cated manufacture was thus definitely established in this country and novo- cain was produced in adequate quan- tties without dependence upon Ger many, even for the intermediate pro- duct.
 At the end of October there was a government demand for few pounds of the new antiseptic trypa- flavin. Although the scientific staff was working at high pressure three chemists were taken off their ordin- ary work, and a careful scientific in- vestigation was made, both of the properties of this class of product and of the best way of preparing it on a large scale in a pure state. At the same time plans were taken in hand for the erection of a. plant for it's manufacture, which is of an extreme ly complicated character, involving a vary 11rpa of fa nd distinct processes.
 In March of this year a consider able quantity was put at the disposal of the medical research committee. At the same time that military and naval needs were being met there was an enormously. increased demand for civilian requirements. A dye famine threatened to come in a few weeks after the outbreak of the war.
 1 The great textile industry would l have been held up in a month or so | if British manufacturers had not proved able to come to their help. Over one hundred different highly complicated organic products had to be made in Blackley that had never been made in England before, and they had not only to be made, but had to be turned out regularly to meet 8 huge demand. Some idea of the size of it may be gained from the fact that the expansion of output en- tailed an expenditure of half a million pounds and a great deal depended on the promptness with which the thing was done.
 Only chemical manufacturer can have any understanding of the mag nitude of the taske thus undertaken and successfully accomplished. There I rH~~ war. By conference between the manufacturers and the dyers this list has been reduced to 500 of the most necessary dyes. a figure which in it. self is evidence of the extraordinary variety and extent of the regular ci- lvflian demand. Every one of these dyes is a complete chemical com lpound produced from a number of lintermediate products, and these pro- ducts have to be prepared with sci tentific exactitude. There is no in- soluble mystery in the manufacture of these products, and any skilled chemist; can make any one of them I given the time and the means. But 1t is a very big thing to make them all in a hurry. It requires chemists and workers of great experience; at any time the number of such men available in this country is not large | With thex outbreak of war many of the younger chemists went into the Il army, and many more were engaged in making explosives for the war of flee. 1t is bare justice to Messrs Le- vinstein to say that they alone had tthe courage to attempt the manufac- ture, of the innumerable intermediate products for the manufacture of dyes l Nobody in England or in Germany probably would have predicted that tlsuch a, thing could have been done and done in so short time Thai I a British firm should have had the tcourage to attempt it and the skill
 and energy to succeed, without gov.
 ernment help or subsidy, is full O,
 real promise for the future of the British aniline dye industry We know now that we can manufacture aniline dyes and fine chemicals from
 the tar upwards without any helI from Germany.