New Antiseptic

Newspapers, as they often do, last week brandished scant information of a new antiseptic--"monsol," synthesized by the Mondson Refining Co. This British concern is an offshoot of Sir Alfred Mend's industrial chemistry activities. His son Henry is its chairman. Scientific details they seemed chary in giving to the reporters. However, they did relate the drug's use, which the New York Times reported: "It can be applied to the skin and even to the tongue without burning and can be swallowed. More amazing still, it can even be injected into the blood stream, whereas few substances having any real antiseptic power can be injected into a vein without causing death." The New York Herald Tribune quoted Sir Alfred Mond: "Monsol is derived by a new process from the oils of certain coals, and not only is non-irritant but is non-poisonous."

All this seemed wonderful and not a little of chemical prestidigitation. However, monsol, a coal tar derivative, is not different in source and relatively no different in effect from several other aniline dyes tied chemically to antiseptics. The German doctor Paul Ehrlich imagined their theory in the 1880's, applied chemical knowledge and after 20 years invented salvarsan, specific against lues.* This is a yellowish powder composed of arsenic and hydrocarbons. It is a selective poison for spirochetes. By creating it, Dr. Ehrlich founded a new science.

On the analogy of salvarsan, chemists have manufactured mercurochrome (red antiseptic recently commercialized and now a rival of iodine for first aid treatment), brilliant green, gentian violet, acriviolet, hexyl-resorcinal (put together by Professor Treat Baldwin Johnson of Yale and 50 times more powerful than carbolic acid) and many another. Many of them can be injected directly into the blood stream. Practically each week brings reports of new ones in the scientific periodicals. Their bases are tar, distilled from coal and modified according to the need of medicine and the will of chemistry. Monsol is another of their family.

The Monds, originally a Jewish family from Cassel, Germany, have fixed themselves most solidly in the industrial and political life of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The first Mond in England was Ludwig (1839-1909), great chemist, who migrated in 1862 and five years later became a naturalized British subject. First he worked in a chemical factory. A fellow worker was John Tomlinson Brunner (1842-1919). They formed the partnership which became Brunner, Mond & Co., and which has long dominated the British chemical industry. Brunner's second son, Roscoe, chairman of the company, killed himself and his wife a year ago (TIME, Nov. 15, 1926). Mond's eldest son, Robert Ludwig, continued the father's chemical researches.

Alfred Moritz, another son, took up the industrial side, preparing himself by a thorough course in law. After his many corporations were thoroughly organized, for he early diffused his energies into metal making, coal mining and gas producing, he stood for parliament and won his seat. For most English gentlemen, politics are a duty. For Sir Alfred (he was created baronet in 1910), politics have been a duty and a tool. They gave influence to his affluence. He was one of Lloyd George's Liberals; became First Commissioner of Works, then Minister of Health in Lloyd George's War cabinet. Later he was to bolt the Liberal Party, declare himself a Conservative and fret Lloyd George into sneering that he had abandoned the Liberals because "he saw poor prospects for an ambitious man" in sticking to them (TIME, Feb. 8, 1926).

Meanwhile one of Sir Alfred's daughters, Eva Violet, had married (1914) Gerald Rufus Isaacs, Viscount Erleigh, only son and heir of the Marquess of Reading. His second daughter, Angela Mary, married (1922) Sir Neville Pearson, English newspaper proprietor and publisher. The only son of this Mond branch, Henry, chairman of the Mondson Chemical Co., married a Transvaal girl, Amy Gwen Wilson.

The Monds, more than the other leading English Jewish families--the Rothschilds, Isaacs, Samuels, Sassoons, Montagus--love to entertain. To their city house on Lowdnes Square, Belgravia, London, close to both Buckingham Palace and Hyde. Park, they invite politicians, artists,*writers, merchants, notables of every profession.

Out of season they entertain with as lavish hospitality at the other London house, Mondalfro,* or at their great estate, Melchet Court, a few miles northwest of Southampton. Lady Mond forebore her many social activities during the War; accomplished much alleviation of suffering, for which she was created (in 1920) Dame Commander of the British Empire.

*The only other specific drug against a disease is quinine for malaria.

*The late Ludwig Mond owned many an old painting -- an early Raphael, a Botticelli, a Titian. These he bequeathed as the Mond Collection, contingent upon his wife's death, to the National Gallery in London.

*An anagram, of course from "Alfred Mond." He likes to toy with his name (Mondson, monsol) as much as did the late (1851-1925) soap maker Viscount Leverhulme (Lux, Rinso), who was born William Hesketh Lever and married Elizabeth Ellen Hulme.