Evening star., 1941-07-01
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook of Science Progress
In Laboratory, Field
And Study
Bu Thomas r. Henry.

Sans dollars wear out.
Replacing worn paper currency costs
the Federal Government several million
| dollars each year. Previous Bureau Of
| Standards researches on paper have re-
suited in large savings, but, it is sus-
pected, bills now are being put to harder
usage. They pass from hand to hand
more frequently. They are folded oftener
to fit different sizes of pocketbooks or
| pockets.
The only solution is stronger paper
stronger under the actual conditions to
which bills are subjected. This requires
a quick laboratory wear test that will
simulate the kind of treatment paper
currency gets in circulation.
Frederick T. Carson and Vernon
| Worthington have developed, the Bureau
| announces, wear test that will meet
| this need. The test is made in two
stages. First, square of paper is
crumpled to a certain volume by means
| of a piston working in a cylinder. Then
mechanical fingers straighten and
smooth the paper. A mechanism rolls
! it up and puts it in the cylinder again.
| Then it is crumpled once more. This
is repeated many times until the paper
looks and feels like currency that has
been in circulation for several months,
although the artificial wearing process
requires only few minutes.
The whole process is completely auto
matte and at the end of a specified
amount of treatment the crumpling
process stops. In the second stage Of
the test the amount of damage that
has resulted from the treatment is de-
termined. Strength and stiffness some
times are measured, but the most valus
able criterion has been found to be the
rate at which air will flow through the
paper under a given pressure This
shows how much the structure has been
opened up. This, in turn, is closely re-
lated to the roughness or fuzziness of
the surface, its ability to catch dirt and
absorb oil or grease, and the probability
of impairment of printed images or
characters on the paper. This part of
the tests also is performed with a spe-
cial instrument developed at the bureau
for this work.
The machine actually duplicates, the
Bureau of Standards engineers claim
what actually happens to currency used
over and over again to pay bills Money
is made of about the finest quality of
paper obtainable in the world. but even
this deteriorates rapidly when it is passed
over beer-soaked bars, tossed in dusty
allies as the stake in crap games. or used
over and over again to pay the butcher
and the baker.
The American people were dosed with
more than $50 tons of sulfanilamide
and its related drugs-sulfapyridine and
sulfathiazole-in 1910.
This, at least, was the output of Amer
| lean drug manufacturers to supply the
current demand for these medicines
| which have cut the death rate from
pneumonia in half during the past four
| years and have proved magical remedies
for many other hitherto fatal infections.
The remarkable increase in their use
almost entirely on prescriptions by
| physicians-is gathered from the United
| States Tariff Commission statistics on
synthetic chemicals just issued.
The production of sulfanilamide itself
actually dropped nearly ITO tons from
1899, the report shows. but the decline
was more than offset by similar drugs
which are more effective in many con-
ditions-sulfapyri and sulfathiazole.
Output of the former increased from
about 27 to 40 tons and of the latter
from essential zero to about As tons.
Both these products are considered
particularly suitable for the treatment
| of pneumonia The total sales amounted
to close to $4,000, 900 from an industry
which was undreamed of a few years ago.
An interesting revelation of the report
| is that more than 5000 tons of acetyl-
! calicylic acid-usually sold under the
trade name of aspirin-were consumed
here in one year.
Much of the material in the files
of the Tariff Bureau, it is stressed in
the report, cannot be published this
| year because of its possible military i'm
| portance 1t reveals, however, that the
| total sales of synthetic organic chemt-
| cals-some of which are vital war
materials-increased 26 per cent over
| 1899, which had been the record year.
Sales of chemicals manufactured from
coal tars, one of the chief sources of
medicines, perfumes and dyes, increased
| from s185 ,000,0 900 to S218,000,000 Other
synthetics increased from $500, 900 900 to
1886 900 900.
Much of the increase, it is stressed,
was not directly for war purposes but
was due to the cutting of of imports
and the desire of manufacturers to build
up as large stocks as possible for the
years ahead when production may be
cut down by war exigencies. Coal tar
| product imports, for example, reached
the lowest levels last year since 1919.
The most remarkable increase in
production was of coal tar dyes-about
1000 tons more than in 1939-and the
chief reason for this was 90 per cent
increase In exports The dye industry
| was largely developed in Germany and
much of the worlds production has been
concentrated there.
Production of both ascorbic acid-the
scurvy- preventing vitamin derived from
the sugar of various citrus fruits-and
of NICOTINE acid the specific for the
prevention and cure of pellagra, nearly
doubled during the year.
Particular interest is attached to the
resins, used in plastics which are i'm
1 e.. Lzf. rv-