Science: Chemists at Buffalo

“Cornerstones of industry,” “protectors of human life” were titles which chemists who attended the 82nd meeting of the American Chemical Society in Buffalo last week applied to themselves. Although their value to life and well-being is incalculable, they could justly figure that eleven billion dollars of industry depend upon their knowledge and activity. The diversity of their work has enforced specializing: agriculture and food chemistry, biology, medicine, cellulose, colloids, dyes, fertilizers, gas and fuel, leather and gelatin, paint and varnish, petroleum, rubber, sugar, water, sewage and sanitation.

The chemists patiently listened to learned papers and learned discussions. Yet they had fun—having their group picture taken at McKinley’s Monument in Buffalo’s Niagara Square; visiting the factories in and around Buffalo.*

High point of the convention was when President Moses Gomberg of the Society gave Professor Linus Carl Pauling of California Institute of Technology a certificate and $ 1,000 for being the most promising young chemist in the country and President Frank Jerome Tone of Carborundum Co. a gold medal for being a fine type of manufacturer (TIME, Aug. 31). President Tone had only to say “Thank you.” but Professor Pauling was obliged to deliver a long and learned exposition on ”The Structure of Crystals and the Nature of the Chemical Bond.” President Gomberg listened raptly. For young Professor Pauling had built on what President Gomberg, who has been professor of chemistry at the University of Michigan only three years less than the 30 which Professor Pauling has lived, had long ago contributed to chemistry. He who gives out prizes in science has usually taken some himself. For his pioneering in the studies of unsaturated compounds President Gomberg has received U. S. Chemistry’s two top medals, the Nichols and the Gibbs.

The future meeting places of the American Chemical Society are always newsworthy. Decided last week were: spring 1932, New Orleans; autumn 1932, Denver; spring 1933, Washington; autumn 1933, Chicago.

Here follow some topics the chemists discussed at Buffalo:

Sugar for Diabetics. U. S. chemistry’s greatest individual benefactor, Francis Patrick Garvan, has a progressively severe case of diabetes. Insulin is maintaining him in fragile health. Last week from Buffalo he received news which may help him and other diabetics. Dr. Israel Mordecai Rabinowitch of the Montreal General Hospital has traced the damages of diabetes to an enzyme in the blood. An enzyme is a digester. Dr. Rabinowitch’s enzyme apparently destroys the insulin which the patient’s pancreas manufactures itself or which the patient takes as medicine. Infections, like colds, stimulate the increase of this insulin-destroying enzyme. Infections are the diabetic’s greatest danger. Fats in the diet also nourish the enzyme’s increase. But—and this was startling since sugar has been considered the diabetic’s bane—sugar destroys the enzyme. Dr. Rabinowitch has apparently proved his point and reoriented the treatment of diabetes by giving his patients foods low in fats, comparatively high in sugar. With many cases he was able to dispense with insulin.

Thyroids & Insanity. One of five persons confined to U. S. hospitals is there for dementia praecox. Some cases might be due, surmised Professor Roy Graham Hoskins of Harvard, to thyroid irregularities. He went to the State Hospital at Worcester, Mass, and with the help of F. H. Sleeper selected 18 dementia praecox patients who probably had poor thyroids. They fed these patients thyroid extract, were not surprised to find 14, or 88%, decidedly improved, five of them sufficiently so to be released and trusted in the general community.

Girls & Vegetables. An observation: Vegetarian co-eds at the University of Colorado have more efficient digestive apparatus than their meat-eating school mates.—Dr. Glen Raymond Wakeham of Boulder, Col.

Antiseptics. The whole philosophy of antiseptics was contained in a few words read by Herbert Clifton Hamilton, pharmacologist of Parke, Davis & Co.: “No one antiseptic will kill all kinds of germs. For example, the tetanus germ, which causes lockjaw, can be put into pure carbolic acid and remain in perfect health. Aniline dyes, which are widely used for cuts and skin injuries, kill only certain germs and leave others, equally dangerous, unscathed.

“Probably one reason these colored antiseptics are so popular is that people acquire a false sense of security by the discoloration left on the skin. In reality, the antiseptic effect lasts only a few minutes.

“Many persons use these dyes in preference to iodine because they do not cause pain on an open sore. It isn’t the iodine which causes the pain; it is the alcohol in which it is dissolved.

“The safe rule in using antiseptics is to get a prescription from a doctor for the type of antiseptic useful in combating the particular type of germ you fear. Widely advertised antiseptics are effective on some germs, but it is dangerous to rely on them for all kinds of illness. It is like shooting in the dark; you may hit the correct germ or you may miss it entirely.”

Body Alcohol. Evidence “that the body can handle moderate amounts of alcohol — and I mean moderate — without injurious effect, and probably with some degree of advantage” came from Dr. Alexander Oscar Gettler, New York City’s chief toxicologist. It has been supposed that only tipplers have alcohol in their systems. Dr. Gettler took the brains, blood and liver of animals and humans who had never drunk spirituous beverages. For getting the human material he was in excellent position. As chief toxicologist he has shared in 30,000 autopsies. He can get fresh human tissue within 15 minutes after death. The evidence he presented at Buffalo indicated that the human brain normally contains a half drop of pure alcohol, the liver three drops, the blood five drops. Dogs have less alcohol in them than people, pigs less than dogs. That suggests to Dr. Gettler that the higher in evolution the animal, the more alcohol it naturally contains. He now is seeking to find what part of the body manufactures alcohol, and why.

Castor Oil Silk. By heating castor oil and an alkali and mixing the result with the motor anti-freeze compound called ethylene glycol, Wallace Hume Carothers and Julian W. Hill, du Pont chemists, produced an artificial silk fibre. Theirs is an entirely synthetic fibre. Rayon is natural cellulose processed by machine in imitation of the silk worm’s processing of cellulose for its cocoon. The Carothers-Hill fibre is as lustrous as real silk, stronger and more elastic than rayon fibres, as strong and elastic as real silk. It is too expensive to manufacture commercially, is mainly a demonstration of chemical knowledge and skill.

* Notably Dunlop Tire & Rubber Corp., Buffalo Foundry & Machine Co., Tonawanda Paper Co., Flexlume Corp., Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Co., a power station of the Niagara Hudson system.