CHEMISTRY IN THE WAR.
SUBSTITUTES FOR COTTON--NITRATES PRODUCED FROM AIR--YEAST A REAL
SUBSTITUTE FOR BEEF--SEAWEED MADE TO GIVE UP POTASH--A GANGRENE
PREVENTATIVE--SODA MADE OUT OF SALT WATER--AMERICA CHEMICALLY
INDEPENDENT.
It is when men are put to the test that they develop initiative and are
inspired to great things. In the stress of circumstances there were
created through and in the great war many unusual devices and much that
will endure for the benefit of mankind in the future. It is probable
that the advancements made in many lines would not have been attained in
years but for the necessity which demanded the exertion of men's
ingenuity, and in no field was this advancement greater than in that of
chemistry.
Any struggle between men is, in the last analysis, a battle of wits, but
it remained for those planning and scheming to defeat their fellow men
or protect themselves in the world conflict to make for the first time
in history the fullest use of the chemist's knowledge. Largely the
successes of the war have been due to the studies and activities of the
chemists, working in their laboratories far from the actual field of
strife.
Not only has their knowledge been turned to the creation of tremendously
destructive explosives, the like of which have never before been known
in warfare, but the same brains which have been utilized to assist man
in his death-dealing crusades have been called upon to thwart the
efforts of the warring humans and save the lives of those compelled to
face the withering fire of cannon, the flaming grenade and the
asphyxiating gas bomb.
In the food crisis which confronted the nations, chemists drew from the
very air and the waters of the river and sea, gases and salts to take
the place of those which became limited in their supply because of the
demands of the belligerents.
The chemist is one of those who fights the battles at home. The
resisting steel, the penetrating shell, the poisonous gas, the
power-producing oil, the powerful explosive--all these are his
contributions to the war's equipment, but he also is the magician who
waves the wand and out of the apparently useless weeds and vegetable
matter produces edibles. He turns waste products into valuable chemicals
or extracts needed chemicals from by-products.
GERMANY'S GREAT PRIVATION.
Germany, deprived of many imports by the sea power of England, first
transformed herself into a self-supporting nation through the agency of
the chemist. Substitutes had to be provided for food products which the
Germans could not get, and it is said that the ability of the Kaiser and
his henchmen to withstand the attacks of the Allied forces was due as
much to the service rendered by the chemists as by the army and navy.
Not only were artificial foodstuffs manufactured, but natural food
products previously neglected were prepared for use. What had been
regarded as useless weeds were found to possess food value. A dozen
wild-growing plants were found that might be used as a substitute for
spinach, while half a dozen others were shown to be good substitutes for
salads. Starches were obtained from roots, and cheap grades of oils and
fatty wastes of all sorts were turned into edibles.
Up until the advent of the present war cotton formed the base of most of
the so-called propellant explosives used in advanced warfare. Such
terrible explosives as trinitrotoluene occasionally mentioned in the
published war reports, as well as many others, have as the principal
agent of destructive force guncotton, which is ordinary raw cotton or
cellulose treated with nitric or sulphuric acid, though there are, of
course, other chemicals used in compounding the various forms of deadly
explosives.
At the same time there are innumerable explosives which are of a
distinct class. Lyddite, mentioned occasionally as one of the modern
death-dealing explosives, has for a base picric acid. The Lyddite shells
referred to occasionally in various articles about the war are shells in
which Lyddite is used as the explosive. The largest percentage of
explosives used in modern gunnery are those formed of nitrated
cellulose--guncotton.
TWO GREAT FACTORS.
Therefore any shortage in the supply of cotton and cellulose is a
serious matter in war time, for the country which has the most plentiful
supply of ammunition is the one that has the greatest relative
advantage. It was, for instance, stated from Washington several times
after the war started and the United States commercial and industrial
forces were being mobilized, that America could make enough almost
unbelievably powerful explosives to blow Germany off the face of the
European map, were it possible to transport the dangerous materials.
Dozens of new explosive compounds were placed before the Government for
consideration and in application for patents. One of the new ones, it
was said, was so powerful that little more than a pinch of it exploded
beneath such an immense structure as the Woolworth Building, New York,
would destroy the entire edifice.
The curtailment of the supply of cotton to Germany when the war started,
because of England's blockade, and later when America entered the
conflict, threatened disaster to the "Fatherland." The German chemists
began working immediately to supply substitutes for cotton, to be used
both in the manufacture of explosives and fabrics. They developed the
processes of producing cellulose from wood pulp to take the place of
cotton for making guncotton, and certain forms of wood fiber and paper
were used in the textile trades. Willow bark was one of the substances
utilized to a limited degree in making fabrics.
Likewise synthetic--or artificial--camphor to take the place of that
secured from nature's own laboratory--the camphor tree--was also
produced of necessity, for camphor is an ingredient largely used in
making smokeless powder. Before the war most of the camphor was obtained
from Japan.
Compounds--alloyed steel, iron and aluminum--have also been used in the
industrial world to supplant copper. In America we have been educated to
regard copper as the ideal metal for conducting electrical power, but in
Europe aluminum was used successfully in a large way, even before the
war. After the conflict started in all of the countries where there was
a scant supply of copper, substitutes were developed by the
metallurgists and chemists.
POTENCY OF MODERN CHEMISTRY.
The acids and salts used in powder making and the creation of explosives
were also secured from new places. Nitric acid, which is necessary to
the manufacture of guncotton, for many years was made principally with
saltpeter and sulphuric acid. Modern chemists, however, made it from
nitrogen of the very air we breathe, and in Germany it was made during
the war from ammonia and calcium cyanamide, both of which may be
obtained from the air.
Many such methods of obtaining acids were known and tested before the
war, but the processes had not been perfected to such an extent as to
make them commercially profitable. However, the increased prices of
chemicals, due to the excessive demands of war, and the absolute
necessity for producing them inspired the chemists to get the required
results, and Germany by the development of these sources of supply found
the acids necessary for her own use in war, whether for explosive making
or medical purposes.
Great quantities of sugar are used in making powder and explosives, too,
and when the supply became limited the German chemists began producing
in larger quantities the chemical substitute--saccharine. Later even
this sweet was denied the population because the chemicals were needed
for war uses. So in every line Germany found use for everything which
its chemists and chemical laboratories could produce.
The terrible gas and liquid fire bombs which the Germans were first
reported using contained chemical compounds invented for the purpose by
the chemists. Some of the chemicals and the gases produced when the
bombs exploded were so powerful that men and animals in the range of the
fumes were killed instantly. The effect was to paralyze them in some
cases and it was reported that many of the soldiers were found dead
standing upright in the trenches or in the attitudes which they had
assumed at the moment they were overcome.
BASIC PRINCIPLE OF BOMBS.
Nitrous-oxide, or chlorine, in some chemical form is supposed to have
been the base of the bombs, and concerning the liquid fire it was
reported in connection with the dropping of bombs on London from a
Zeppelin, that some of the bombs contained what is chemically known as
Thermit, which is a mixture of aluminum and iron oxide used in brazing
and welding. When ignited the oxygen is freed from the iron and combines
with the aluminum with great rapidity. During the chemical reaction an
intense heat is produced--a heat so great that it almost equals that of
an electric arc.
So in the world of agriculture and industry the German chemists,
recognized leaders of the world, actually made or produced from the air
and other unsuspected sources things without which they could not have
withstood the siege against them for a single year. In the absence of
concentrated foods for cattle and humans, the chemists produced absolute
substitutes. They took the residue or waste from the breweries and
extracting the bitter hops taste from the dried yeast produced a
substitute for beef extract.
So also they secured ammonium sulphate by a direct combination of
nitrogen and hydrogen in the air. At the same time they utilized other
minerals than those usually available for the manufacture of sulphuric
acid and placed the country on an independent footing.
But Germany was not alone in its advancement. The United States, which
found itself without quantities of dye-stuffs and many other chemically
produced things when the war came on, took the lesson unto itself and is
today nearer self-supporting than it ever was in the history of the
nation. The Department of Agriculture has experimented and produced from
yeast, vegetable boullion cubes, which taste like beef extract and
contain greater nutriment.
DOMESTIC DYE-STUFFS.
America, too, has extracted sulphate of ammonium from the air and the
dye-stuffs which we could not get from abroad are being made at home.
Two of the things which America found lacking when war developed were
potash and acetone, both of which are factors in powder and explosive
making. The former is used in the ordinary black gunpowder, but the
latter is necessary in the making of the smokeless powder. England
wanted Cordite, one form of this powder which the British think is the
best propellant in the world. It is made of guncotton and nitroglycerine
and acetone is one of the chemicals required in its manufacture. England
turned to the United States for quantities of this explosive and also
for the acetone, but America did not produce anywhere near enough, and
England wanted this country to make something like 20,000,000 pounds of
the explosive.
A number of mushroom chemical plants were developed by the powder
company to produce the desired acetone--one very much like a vinegar
plant near Baltimore, and another at San Diego, California, where the
munitions maker's chemists refined acetone and potash extracted from
kelp, or sea weed, and besides supplying the powder and the chemicals
which the English needed America developed a permanent industry.
RELIEVED BY AMERICAN INGENUITY.
Carbolic acid, too, was one of the badly needed chemicals of the war,
not only for medical purposes, but also for explosive making. Again the
ingenuity of America asserted itself and Thomas A. Edison produced the
plans for two benzol-absorbing plants which were erected at great steel
works and within a few months these plants were turning out benzol and
Mr. Edison's carbolic-acid plant was being supplied with the raw
material.
And then it was believed that America could not make dyes to take the
place of those which came from Germany. All the United States, it was
said, would have to wear white stockings. The country just could not
produce the dyes necessary, and the product of the American plants was
inferior. But America could make the same dyes. She is making them.
Right now she is making practically as great a variety as Germany ever
sent over here.
A few miles outside of Philadelphia, at Marcus Hook, on the busy
Delaware river where the ships of the world are being made, the Benzol
Products Company turns out large quantities of aniline oil. The aniline
oil, the essential basis of aniline dyes, is made into tints as fair and
perfect as any the wizards of Germany ever conjured out of their test
tubes.
The tale about America's inability was proved to be a fable. The Marcus
Hook plant is one of three which sprang up when the war began. Others
are the Schoellkopf Aniline and Chemical Works at Buffalo and a third is
the Becker Aniline and Chemical Works at Brooklyn. The three are now
merged into one great operating company and Germany will have some
difficulty in getting back her dye trade when she is ready to again
fight for the world markets.
Moreover, the world-famous duPont Company, which has made powder and
chemicals for all the nations, turned in and purchased the Harrison
Chemical Works in 1917, and besides making "pigments" has entered the
coal tar dye industry. The company made an intensive study of the dyeing
industries--cotton, calico printing, wool, silk, leather, paper, paints,
printing inks, &c., and made plans to meet the requirements of each. The
Harrison plant is but one of the immense group operated by the duPont
Company and it has been famous for the manufacture of white lead and
acids.
A CHEMICAL DISCOVERY.
There is in fact no line in which the chemists of America did not rise
to the emergency and the "romances of the industrial" world are not more
entrancing than are those of the medical and other fields. Chemistry,
for instance, discovered an antitoxin for the deadly gangrene, or gas
bacillus, poisoning of the battlefields. The discovery was made by
research workers in Rockefeller Institute.
It is one of the most important discoveries in medical research as
applied to war, having an even greater bearing on the treatment of war
wounds than the Dakin-Carrel treatment of sluicing wounds previously
referred to. The serum works on the same principle as the anti-tetanus
serum used to prevent lockjaw. The gangrene antitoxin is injected to
prevent the development of gangrene poisoning.
The serum was developed by Dr. Carrel Bull and Miss Ida W. Pritchett, of
the Rockefeller Institute, by immunizing horses by the application of
the bacillus germs, then obtaining the resultant serum from the horses.
The new serum displaces, in a measure, the Dakin-Carrel method of
treating wounds. As soon as a soldier is picked up wounded, the plan is
to give him an injection of the serum so that he can be rushed to the
rear ambulances with no fear that the deadly gas infection will develop.
The use of the serum means the wiping out of the big death rate from
infection, with death resulting merely from wounds that are in
themselves fatal. The gas bacillus was discovered by Dr. William H.
Welch, of Johns Hopkins University, 25 years ago. The bacillus
frequently is present in soil and when carried to an open wound
germinates quickly, developing into bubbles of gaseous matter, whence
comes the name "gas bacillus." The bubbles multiply rapidly, a few hours
often being sufficient to cause death.
A WOUND-FLUSHING SYSTEM.
Possible gangrene poisoning has been offset by the Dakin-Carrel system
of constantly flushing the open wounds, but patients are frequently too
far off to be given the advantage of the flushing method and this is
where the serum is chiefly valuable. The ambulance or medical corps
"shoots" the serum into the wounded soldier even before they douse his
wound with iodine.
The progress that has been made along these lines is indicated by the
statement of Lord Northcliffe, who after a visit to the front declared
that the annual death rate in the English army was 3 per cent of 1000
and that the average illness, including colds and influenza, was less
than in London, despite the discomforts of the trenches.
In the past disease has been as destructive as battles. Biology and
pathology, to say nothing of surgery and therapeutics, have made such
strides that disease has been virtually eliminated as a factor in
warfare. War takes medical science into the field, where the control of
large masses of men enables it to develop the highest efficiency.
Even in normal peace conditions biological and pathological science has
been accomplishing results not popularly understood. Individual cures by
surgery and medicine appeal to personal interests, but these are
negligible compared to the prevention of plagues like smallpox, typhus
and tuberculosis. If such diseases had not been successfully combated by
science three out of four of the present civilized population would not
be in existence at all. The organized and intensive application and
developments of science, of preventive medicine, constitute the strictly
neutral work in this war by which all humanity will profit for all time
to come.
In passing it is interesting to note that the great power supplied by
Niagara Falls is being utilized to produce some of the chemical marvels.
One great industry there is making soda by the electrolytic process.
That is, salt brine is pumped from the saline deposits in western New
York and piped to the works. This is run into electric cells and through
these a current of electricity is led. The salt, which is composed of
chlorine and sodium, decomposes under the electric attack. The sodium
goes to one pole and combines with water to form caustic soda, whereas
the chlorine escapes at the other pole. Let us follow the chlorine,
which is a yellowish-green gas, more than twice as heavy as air, and has
found a new use as poison gas in the great war--for which all the world
should be ashamed.
It is collected and compressed to a liquid form and shipped in
containers under pressure for use in chemical works and bleacheries and
for the purification of drinking water. It has been found above all
things effective in destroying noxious bacilli. A surprisingly small
amount of the gas dissolved in the water is enough. In New York city the
water has been chlorinated and no single case of typhoid fever has been
traced to the supply.