Atoms, Drugs, Wines

To St. Louis, busy mart, came 1,500 chemists for the 75th meeting of the American Chemical Society; organic chemists, inorganic chemists, biological chemists, physical chemists, industrial chemists, engineering chemists; chemists who worked with spectroscope and vacuum tube to find out the structure of the atom, chemists who spent their days with rabbit and guinea pig to ferret out the secrets of growth, chemists who messed about with saps and sawdust to build up substitutes for rubber, sugar, silk. More than 300 scientific papers were read. More than a fifth of these were on the program of the Division of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry, the longest program of any of the 16 divisions. This division united with the Organic Division to give a symposium on "Atomic Structure and Valence," officially announced as "probably the most notable in this sphere of pure science ever held in the United States."

Reeling Atoms. Probably the most notable paper at this "most notable symposium" was the report of Professor William Draper Harkins, University of Chicago chemist. Fourteen years ago C. T. R. Wilson discovered that atoms shot at high speed through a gas, may be made to leave visible trails. Since then Professor Harkins has been trailing helium atoms. He has been busily exploding chunks of "thorium C" and other radioactive substances which shoot off atoms at the mad speed of 12,000 miles per second.

"Stepping up" his movie machine, he has taken reels of the reeling helium atoms; his picture gallery now consists of 100,000 photographs showing the tracks of about 1,000,000 atoms. The atomic trail is infinitesimal, a narrow path (usually straight but sometimes bent as though the atom had trespassed too close to some minute object which had repelled it) made of the same water vapor that forms the clouds. Occasionally some dizzily dashing helium atom hurtling through the hundreds of thousands of normal atomic citizens in the air crashes kerplunk into the nucleus of one of them. Only 30 such collisions occurred in all the 1,000,000 trails recorded by Professor Harkins.

The shock of a helium nucleus crashing into the nucleus of a nitrogen atom causes an explosion which disintegrates the atom. Out of the wreck a new fluorine atom emerges, but not for long. It explodes immediately, shooting off a furiously fast atom of hydrogen and a slower atom of a new kind of oxygen which is heavier than either the helium or the nitrogen atom. According to Einstein's theory, when helium is formed from lighter hydrogen atoms, energy is given off (enough to heat an ordinary house from 500 to 1 ,000 years in the formation of one pound of helium atoms).

This was the energy that Millikan demonstrated in the cosmic ray (TIME, March 26). But the helium-nitrogen activity seems to be just the opposite. When helium and nitrogen collide and explode, forming oxygen and hydrogen, energy appears to be stored rather than given off. From this have arisen arguments which support the theory of Prof. Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin--that the earth has been built up by the aggregation of smaller bodies such as meteorites or planetesimals, in which energy has been stored.

Gibbs Gold Medalist. Chemist Harkins' researches have brought him world fame and the Willard Gibbs gold medal, a major honor in chemistry. He was chosen by a jury of twelve good chemists and true; the medal was presented by the Chicago section of the society. Atomic pictures are not his only passport to professional prestige. In various oil-and-water experiments he has earned the gratitude of oilmen. By pouring oil on water and letting the oil layer spread out to the thickness of one molecule he has been able to measure the exact size of the molecule and calculate the force with which it clings to the water.

Doctoring Drugs. Drugs may be made more effective and less harmful to the patient by mixing a magnesium salt with them, according to the researches of Dr. Moses Leverock Crossley of Bound Brook, N. J. The magnesium salt acts upon the body allowing the drug to penetrate more freely, quickening the action, reducing the dosage in many cases. Magnesium made aspirin twice as effective; made morphine injections last four times their ordinary duration; made codein, which ordinarily has no effect on temperature, reduce fevers. Any salt of magnesium may be used.

No More Smoke Screen. President of the society, Professor Samuel Wilson Parr pleaded for pure air. He found 80 per cent of present fuels guilty of producing smoke, thereby increasing heating costs by waste of combustible material, increasing cleaning costs, injuring merchandise, injuring health by screening off the ultra violet rays of the sun, and corroding the lungs with sulphur fumes. He dubbed the domestic chimney more dangerous than the factory smoke stack. The inadequate supply of anthracite has been the argument for burning bituminous coal, but bituminous coal can now be perfectly converted into gas and coke which do not smoke. After 25 years research on this problem at the University of Illinois, Professor Parr propagandizes for their proper place in the home.

Group Activity. Mobilization of all Government, university, laboratory facilities for a concerted attack on disease was predicted by Dr. William Charles White of the U. S. Public Health Service at Washington. For six years scientists have been studying a pure culture of a single strain of tubercle bacillus, chemically, bacteriologically, physically. Thirteen trillions of the little bugs, over three gallon jars full, have been accurately analyzed; ten different substances have been isolated from them.

Each one of these substances, when injected into the animal body has a specific effect. One of them, the phosphatide fraction, makes cells grow wildly and rapidly, giving the effect of cancer. Over 20 laboratories and organizations are cooperating in the research under the joint guidance of the Public Health Service and the National Tuberculosis Association: the results justify hope of a more rapid solution of this baffling disease. Dr. White feels that the same scientific concentration method should be applied to fields of study in industry, agriculture, medicine.

Water v. Wine. Concerning the 18th Amendment Dr. William James Mayo of Rochester, Minn., said: "It is assumed that the drinking of spirituous and fermented liquors is due to an evil inborn longing to be stamped out only by the exercise of individual self-control. Is this true?

"In France and Italy the drinking of billions of gallons of wine saved the people from extinction; they could not have lived had they drunk their polluted water. The Teutonic countries turned to beer to secure a sterile drink; England had ale and wine, and temperate countries, such as Turkey, had tea and coffee.

"Simultaneously with Vienna's introduction of a pure water supply from the mountains, her per capita consumption of spirituous and fermented liquor was reduced spontaneously 40 per cent. The introduction of a pure water supply in the various States in our country has been followed by a temperance movement, and finally by prohibition. The same influence is now apparent in Europe. In England pure water is to be had in the large cities, and a temperance movement promptly results, but in the villages without potable water no such movement is as yet manifest. The drink habit was one of the many forms of protection resorted to by nature to save man from filth diseases which cause death, or that which is worse than death, intellectual deterioration."