The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1921-12-03
MODERN DAY MIRACLES
The Story of london School Boy
Who Stumbled Upon the Secret
of Making Dyes From Coal Tar.
Poets of Science.


Poets of Science.
William Henry Perl1in was an odd
/ sort Of yungster. When he was Is
years old and a student in the city of
i London school he heard a series of lee
lures on chemistry during the noon re-
lcess. Young William Henry decided
that the lectures would be of more
value to him than his lunches, so he
took in the lectures.
Apparently the lectures made a de-
Icided impression upon the boy. Two
years later he entered the laboratory
i of chemist named Holman in the
Royal college Of I1ondon, and by the
time he was IL had started upon his
career as a researcher. Perkins de-
cided that his mission in life was to
isolate phenenthrene from coal tar and
iprepare artificial quinine. In order to
speed the day when his task would be
done he set up a private laboratory and
worked overtime While at work in
this laboratory in the spring of 1856 he
found in his test a black sticky mass
INSTEAD of CLEAR crystals. He attempted
to wash it out with alcohol, when to
his surprise, he produced wonderful
purple solution-mauve, the first Of the
aniline dyes
Ten years later Perkins achieved his
greatest triumph when he produced
alizarin, or Turkey red, formerly made
only from the root of the madden.
Years later the British government
knighted the man who first discovered
the vast possibilities contained with
coal tar, but gave him little financial
support or encouragement. 1t was left
to German researchers to build up the
industry and finally to obtain d stran-
gle hold upon the trade-a hold so firm
that in 1914 the kaiser was convinced
that, with the aid of his chemists, he
was in position to conquer the world
Creative chemists-the successors of
Perl1in--lately have been called the
Poets of Science" because their mag
nation has found in coal tar the fra
GRANGE Of the rose, the explosive that
wounds and the medicine that heals,
the bitterness of hemlock and the
sweetness of honey. In a recent adj
dress in Edinburgh the president of the
chemical section of the British Asso-
citation for the Advancement of Science,
urging the correlation Of scholastic
knowledge with the common expert
.ences and contacts of daily life, said:
"The quivering CLINT of massed blue
bells in broken sunshine. the Joyous
radiance of young beech leaves against
the stately cedar, the perfume of the
hawthorne in the twilight, the fIorid
majesty of rhododendron, the fragrant
simplicity of lilac, periodically gladden.
the most careless heart and the least
reverent spirit; but to the chemist they
breathe an added message, the assur-
ance that a new season of refreshment
has dawned upon the world and that
those delicate syntheses into the mys-
terry of which it is his happy privilege
to penetrate, once again are working
their inimitable miracles in the 1abora-
tory of the human organism
Poetry indeed! But chemists are
practical poets. They produce the ma
terials a nation must have If it hopes
to live and compete with other ma
tfons Few nations realized this truth. |
however until the world war offered
convincing proof by opening 100 per
cent explosive and closing SIS per cent !
chemical That opened their eyes, but, |
unfortunately, Germany had a fifty |
year start and took the trouble to pro-
tect the advantage
on January /, 1916, seven leading
dye companies of Germany formed /
dye trust to last fifty years. with the |
idea Of controlling the chemical bust
ness of the world. During this period /
they viii maintain uniform prices, |
wages and hours Of labor and ex-
change patents and trade secrets. They I
even basis and share the profits.