Chemists in Chicago

The British Association for the Advancement of Science was concluding its sessions at Leicester last week as the American Chemical Society was beginning its in Chicago. Many of the subjects discussed before both bodies were, identical, notably the surveys of vitamins, hormones and enzymes. At Leicester, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins devoted his B. A. A. S. presidential address to these vital entities. In Chicago they were the subject of a symposium in which A. C. S. President Arthur Becket Lamb partook, and at which foreign guests of the Society expounded--Munich's Dr. Richard Willstaetter on enzymes, Zurich's Dr. Paul Karrer on vitamins, Edinburgh's Dr. George Barger on hormones.

Of the many informative points these authorities raised for their audiences, the point about the chemical relation between hormones and vitamins seemed to loom most significantly.

Vitamin D, the vitamin which controls the growth of bones, prevents rickets, is formed by sunlight acting on ergosterol, a vegetable substance. Chemical twin of ergosterol is cholesterol which is involved with the female sex hormone theelin. Sex hormones are intimately connected with growth, and so the "sterols" may be a foundation for all kinds of growth.

Biochemists were no sooner positive of the hormone-vitamin relationship in the growing processes, than they discovered a sterol-like substance in coal tar which causes certain kinds of cancer. Cancer is a form of growth, but unregulated. The cancerogenic coal tar "sterol" causes the same sex changes in rats as does the hormone theelin. The breasts and uterus are common sites of cancer, and many an investigator has suspected a sex hormone as a possible cause. Knowledge of growth, hormones and vitamins are becoming interlaced to the biochemist's delight. He is confident that from them he can weave a strong rope and climb to understanding of life itself.

Life, declared Professor Willstaetter at the Chicago symposium, is definitely a chemical process to which the pass key is the study of enzymes. Enzymes are catalytic substances produced by living cells. There are a multitude of them and each has an individual affinity for substances which it can either break down or synthesize.

Professor Willstaetter's method of segregating enzymes is beautifully simple. The enzymes are colloids. White clay (kaolin) filters absorb certain kinds of colloids, alumina filters certain other kinds. Enzymes, which pass through both alumina and clay filters, have a third set of characteristics. By shrewd use of colloidal physics and chemistry Professor Willstatter segregated the three important enzymes of pancreatic fluid--lipase which acts on fats, amylase which acts on carbohydrates, trypsin which acts on proteins.

The U. S. chemists who heard Professor Willstaetter in Chicago last week saluted him to the best of their ability. His enzyme work is the culmination of 43 able years in chemistry. He was the first to describe the exact molecular structure of cocaine and stropine, work which led to the synthesizing of many other drugs. He analyzed chlorophyll, the green coloring matter of all growing plants, and showed that chemically it is closely related to hematin, the coloring matter of blood.

The fundamental difference is iron in blood, magnesium in chlorophyll. For his chlorophyll investigations Professor Willstaetter received the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

From red blood and green leaves he proceeded to find out why cornflowers are blue. The color of most flowers and fruits, he eventually demonstrated, depends upon a primary dye group, the anthocyanins. The free dye is violet-colored. Different conditions of alkalinity and acidity make flowers blue or red.

For these original discoveries the American Chemical Society last week gave Nobel Laureate Willstatter of Munich, a bearded, amiable, urbane Jew, its very best salute--the Willard Gibbs Medal.

Salute to Promise. The Willard Gibbs Medal which Professor Willstatter received is a salute to achievement. Chemistry's salute to promise is the Langmuir Prize ($1,000) for able investigators under 31. Recipient last week was Dr. Frank Harold Spedding, stocky, blond chemistry instructor at the University of California, for spectroscopic studies of solid materials.

Pantothenic Acid apparently is a common ingredient of all living stuff. Professor Roger John Williams (Oregon State Agricultural College), who discovered the substance with his associate Carl M. Lyman, has found it in humans, worms, oysters, plant molds, bacteria and algae. Declared they: "It is probably safe to say that it is more widely distributed in Nature than any known physiologically potent substance." Data so far accumulated indicates that pantothenic acid's molecule is composed of long chains of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, that it contains no sulphur or nitrogen. The stuff is potent. A speck of Professor Williams' latest pantothenic acid, extracted from liver, speeds the growth of yeast in 250 gal. of liquid.

Acid for Wine. An expert chemist's advice for aging wine rapidly: "All young wine contains cream of tartar and tartaric acid. It usually requires several years of aging for the precipitation of excess tartar during the process of fermentation, and after the conclusion thereof. ... By addition of calcium malate in proper proportions to wine, even when young, and agitating it for a short time, any proportion of tartaric acid desired can be removed, leaving the malic acid to replace the natural constituent of grapes."

The process is feasible because synthetic chemistry has cheapened the manufacture of malic acid, the substance which gives apples their flavor. Dr. Charles Raymond Downs, Manhattan consulting chemist who presented the wine-aging idea, passes a mixture of air and benzene over a catalyst to get maleic acid. Other action turns the maleic to malic acid, which combines with calcium to form the desired calcium malate.

Another product made from maleic acid is Succinic Acid, which occurs naturally in amber. A compound of succinic acid,, succinyl-chlorimide, has been found to be a thoroughgoing purifier of water. A six-milligram speck of succinyl-chlorimide, reported Dr. Downs, disinfects a canteen of water in a few minutes.

Plastics. Carleton Ellis, Montclair, N. J. research chemist, surveyed modern developments in synthetic resins. Best known ones are those made from phenol and formaldehyde (Bakelite, Durez), urea and formaldehyde (Unyte, Plaskon, Beetle), glycerol and phthalic anhydride (Glyptal, Rezyl), and vinyl compounds (Vinylite). Other trade names: Tornesite, Thiokol, Plioform, Victron. With Bakelite starting the grand march they have been widely used in small molded shapes. Late developments make it possible to mold large objects (chair backs and legs, table tops, radio cabinets) from plastics. Tanks nine feet in diameter have been molded from Haveg, a phenol-aldehyde. Textiles can be impregnated with plastics to stop their creasing. Dr. Ellis believes that "the synthetic resin dwelling house is fast approaching realization," and that "resins made from urea & formaldehyde possess several advantages over those from phenol & formaldehyde. They are stronger, lighter in color, more resistant to darkening under the influence of light."

Zein. The director of the Corn Industries Research Foundation, Chemist Harry Everett Barnard, urged chemists to invent uses for zein, a protein left over as a by-product from the corn-refining industry. Arthur Dehon Little, Cambridge industrial chemist, is already experimenting. Zein resembles cellulose and cellulose derivatives in certain ways. It can be mixed with them, as in plastics. It resists water, decay and flames, has advantages as an adhesive, in sizing paper and textiles, and in finishing leather. Chemist Morris Omansky, Boston consultant, reports zein useful as a reinforcing compound for rubber manufacture, arid Dr. Barnard thinks the protein substance might be turned into artificial silk.

Synthetic Rubber. E. I. du Pont de Nemours &. Co. decided the time was propitious to announce that its synthetic rubber was good enough for all, and cheap enough for some, industrial uses. Dr. Wallace Hume Carothers, research chemist, appeared for the company and said: "Starting with vinylacetylene, a compound made available through the discoveries of Dr. J[ulius] A[rthur] Nieuwland of Notre Dame University, du Pont chemists have synthesized a large number of new compounds closely related to isoprene. At least two of them, chloroprene and bromo-prene, are enormously superior to any other materials as starting points for the synthesis of rubber." DuPrene, derived from chloroprene, is the synthetic rubber which du Pont is beginning to exploit. DuPrene, according to the company, has "approximately the same tensile strength as that of natural rubber, but it stretches further before breaking. It is less affected than is natural rubber by sunlight, oils, acids, heat. . . . DuPrene is considerably more expensive than natural rubber. . . . DuPrene tires will be little if any better than rubber tires, but DuPrene should be more suitable for the cover of a conveyor belt handling hot abrasive materials"

Sulphur for Arthritis. "Arthritic disability involves more people than tuberculosis does," observed Drs. Michael Xavier Sullivan and Walter Cohen .Hess of Georgetown University. To learn how they proceeded to clip the fingernails of sick and well, discovered that arthritic individuals had less sulphur in their nails than did non-arthritic individuals. The investigators inferred that germs form some substances which combine with sulphur and so deprive the body of the sulphur it requires. Drs. Sullivan &. Hess injected certain patients with a colloidal sulphur preparation. The patients improved. Commented Drs. Sullivan & Hess last week: "For ages there has been a folklore as to the value of sulphur in rheumatoid conditions, and the present findings give this idea some scientific-background."

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