November 1, 1909	One hundred years ago, Hooker Electro Chemical Company was founded on this date.
November 2, 1841	C. H. C. Willgerodt was born on this day. He did research on the conversion of internal ketones to terminal thioamides, which is known as the Willgerodt reaction.
November 5, 1854	Paul Sabatier, researcher in catalysis in organic chemistry; discovered process for hydrogenation of oils to solid fats with Jean B. Senderens, was born on this date. In 1912, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his method of hydrogenating organic compounds in the presence of finely disintegrated metals whereby the progress of organic chemistry has been greatly advanced in recent years with F. Victor Grignard for the discovery of the so-called Grignard reagent, which in recent years has greatly advanced the progress of organic chemistry.
November 7, 1929	Eric Kandel discovered how the efficiency of synopses can be modified and did research in molecular mechanism of memory. He was born on this date. In 2000, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Arvid Carsson and Paul Greengard for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system.
November 11, 1884	One hundred and twenty-five years ago on this date, Jean-Baptiste A. Dumas died. He was a researcher on organic compounds, and isolated methanol in 1834 and anthracene with Peligot from coal tar in 1831. Also, he did research on the composition of water, vapor density and made accurate measurement of nitrogen in compounds (Dumas Method). He was born on July 14, 1800.
November 14 1863	One hundred years ago, Leo Baekeland patented Velox paper and plastic Bakelite. He was known as the "father of the plastic industry" and was born on this date.
November 15, 1280	St. Albertus Magnus discovered arsenic in 1250 and the first to use affinity in the sense of chemical reactions. He died on this date.
November 18, 1918	Lawrence E. Glendenin, who discovered promethium in 1945, with J. A. Marinsky and C. D. Coryell, was born on this date
November 20, 1886	Karl von Frisch, who discovered how bees orient and communicate, was born on this date. In 1973, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns.
November 24, 1859	One hundred and fifty years ago on this date, The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin was published by Oxford University Press.
November 26, 1934	Seventy-five years ago on this date, Beckman Instruments, Inc., was incorporated.

December 1, 1909	One hundred years ago on this date, the first production of calcium cyanamide in North America was started by American Cyanamide Co.
December 2, 1859	One hundred and fifty years ago, Ludwig Knorr was born. He synthesized heterocyclic compounds.
December 6, 1778	Two hundred years ago in 1809, Joseph L. Gay Lussac discovered the law of combining volumes of gases. He was born on this date.
December 7, 1909	One hundred years ago on this date, the patent for the first thermosetting man-made plastic from a reaction of phenol with formaldehyde was granted.
December 9, 1919	William N. Lipscomb, researcher on boranes, was among the first to describe 3-dimensional structure of enzymes and proteins. In 1976, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies on the structure of boranes illuminating problems of chemical bonding. He was born on this date.
December 12, 1866	Alfred Werner, who was born on this date, was a researcher in coordination chemistry. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1913 for linkage of atoms in molecules, complex inorganic compounds, stereochemistry, & coordination theory of valency.
December 14, 1909	One hundred years ago, Edward L. Tatum was born on this date. He discovered the genes that regulate certain chemical processes and shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1958) with George W. Beadle for their discovery that genes act by regulating definite chemical events and Joshua Lederberg for his discoveries concerning genetic recombination and the organization of the genetic material of bacteria.
December 16, 1809	Two hundred years ago, Antoine F. de Fourcroy died. With Antoine L. Lavoisier and Claude L. Berthollet, he devised chemical nomenclature. He described salts such as calcium chloride and was born on June 15, 1755.
December 17, 1920	Allied Chemical and Dye Corp. incorporated.
December 19, 1813	Thomas Andrews, who discovered that every gas has a critical temperature above which it cannot be liquefied, was born on this date.
December 20, 1890	Fifty years ago in 1959, Jaroslav Heyrovsky received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery and development of the polarographic methods of analysis. He was born on this date.
December 22, 1884	One hundred and twenty-five years ago, St. Elmo Brady, the first black man to earn a Ph. D. in chemistry, was born on this date. He received his degree in 1916 from the University of Illinois and authored three monographs on Household Chemistry for Girls.
December 24, 1834	One hundred and seventy-five years ago on this date, Augustus G. Vernon Harcourt invented the standard lamp of 10 candle power using pentane.
December 26, 1838	Clemens A. Winkler discovered germanium (Ge, 32) in 1886. He also researched the analyses of gases and was born on this date.
December 29, 1800	Charles Goodyear, who was born on this date, invented the vulcanization of rubber. It was in the year 1839, by an accident, that he discovered the true process of vulcanization, which cured not the surface alone but the whole mass. He was trying to harden the gum by boiling it with sulphur on his wife's cook stove when he let fall a lump of it on the red-hot iron top. It vulcanized instantly.
December 31, 1921	Gilbert Stork, did research in alkylation, acylation, and vinyl ring radical cyclization. He also developed the theory of concerted polyene cyclization and was born on this date.

An informal association

The Society for the Propagation of the
Music of the Chemist-Composers

has been formed to publicize the music of chemist-composers.
For information, visit:
http:/faculty.cua.edu/may/SPMCC.htm

In April 1963 we are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Washington Section of the American Chemical Society; and next year we shall celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Chemical Society of Washington.

There are those who feel that the Washington Section of the American chemical Society should emphasize its charter establishment, in April 1893, as a local section of the American chemical Society. To others, on the other hand, the organization of the chemical Society of Washington in January 1884 is the important event to recognize. Actually, both events have significance, as does continued recognition of both titles, "Chemical Society of Washington" and "Washington Section of the American Chemical Society."

The Chemical Society of Washington - or, if you like the Washington Section of the American chemical Society - can be justifiably proud of its part in the creation of a truly national society known as the American Chemical Society. In the early history of the American Chemical Society, as was also true with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the role of government scientists was of prime importance. In fact, that era of American scientific history may well have been the golden age of the career government scientist. Not that we do not have equivalent leaders in science within the government today; but the relative growth of science in the nation has expanded at a more accelerated rate in universities and industry, so that the relative influence of career government scientists in the nation's science programs may appear to be less significant. There can be no doubt that the stature of the government career scientist in both the scientific and governmental communities was at a high point in the period between 1880 and 1900. It was a concept of lowered status and disenfranchisement to those not living in the New York area which prompted a group of career government scientists in Washington to lead a revolt in 1883, which in the history of the American chemical Society, as recorded by C. A. Browne (a member of the Chemical Society of Washington) is referred as "the succession."

It is necessary to delve into history prior to the establishment of the Washington Section of the American Chemical Society to fully understand the importance of the creation of the Washington Section, whose 70th birthday is being celebrated at the 654th meeting of the Section on April 11 next. (This is also the 721st meeting of the Chemical Society of Washington).

The organization of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1848 led to the creation of sections and eventually to separate societies in many areas. As early as 1850, a section on chemistry was recognized in its program, and in 1873 there was organized a chemical branch of the Association. Among the participants in this group were seven future American Chemical Society presidents, including William McMurtrie, Frank W. Clarke, Harvey W. Wiley, and Charles E. Munroe, who were, or subsequently became, active members of the Washington Section of the American Chemical Society.

At the Northumberland centennial Celebration of Priestley's discovery of oxygen (1874), it was proposed that a national chemical society be organized. D This was opposed by Lawrence Smith, Frank W. Clarke, and others who felt that the chemical section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science afforded a better opportunity to bring chemists together.

In 1876, however, Professor Charles F. Chandler of Columbia University issued an invitation to a group to assemble for the purpose of organizing an American Chemical Society. It is interesting to note that, while the original invitation implied a "local" society, a subsequent invitation, two months later, noted that the local character first proposed was being broadened and that a "national" society should be organized. Unfortunately, the organizing committee and the structure of the proposed society were not nationalized at the same time, and many who joined from outside of new York City were disappointed in the local character and limitations of "resident" and "non-resident" membership, as well as limitation of offices to a certain proportion of new York residents.

Clarke, Wiley, McMurtrie, and Munroe joined the new society as "non-resident"" members in the year of its founding (1876); and William F. Hillebrand joined in 1879. Many persons indicated their unhappiness over the disenfranchisement of non-resident members and the local character of the society. Clarke, Wiley, Hillebrand, and McMurtrie, in fact, led a secession from the American Chemical Society. By coincidence, Clarke and Wiley, who had been classmates at Harvard and were employed in the Midwest (Purdue and Cincinnati, respectively), both accepted appointments in Washington in 1883. Thus there was a simultaneous concentration of the essential power to force a reorganization in the American chemical Society.

Their first move was to organize a chemical Society of Washington, which was initiated in January 1884. Almost immediately, the new group prospered at the expense of the American Chemical Society (New York group), and by 1886 there were no longer any American chemical Society members in the Washington area. At the time that CSW was organized, Wiley was also instrumental in the creation of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists. Both Wiley and Clarke were very active as well in the chemistry Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which also was prospering.

By 1890, with the aid of Munroe, it had been decided that a truly national chemical society should be established. Munroe, who was then at Brown University in providence, R. I., had maintained his American Chemical Society membership; but he also sympathized with the secessionists and, in fact, there is reason to believe that Munroe, Clarke, Wiley, and others in Washington were working together to create a national society.

Munroe felt that the existing American Chemical Society in New York could be broadened into a national society; and as a first step he induced the New York group to hold an out-of-town meeting in Providence. This meeting was highly successful, and as much more national in character than the monthly New York City meetings. The first American Chemical Society bylaws provided that a quorum of 15 would b e necessary for business, but some six meetings went by with no quorum. When a quorum was finally obtained, the bylaws were changed to reduce the quorum requirement to 10, such was the decline in attendance and interest.

It has always been a problem to create a "national" society in name, but at the same time to hold meetings each month in a single place. Members outside of the city cannot afford to attend regularly. Even today, the local sections of the American Chemical Society in the larger cities find that interest in and attendance at monthly meetings are proportionately less than at local section meetings in small communities.

In 1890, Clarke and Wiley decided to make a major effort to create a truly national chemical society. The American Association for the Advancement of Science was to meet in August 1891, in Washington, and Clarke was heading the Chemistry Division. Wiley, as part president and secretary of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists, had arranged to have this organization hold its meeting in Washington at the same time. Clarke, although not a member of the American Chemical Society (New York), invited that organization to hold its third out-of-town meeting in Washington immediately following the AAAS meeting. Clarke's invitation was accepted, and there was thus concentrated with the Chemical Society of Washington a distinguished array of national leaders in chemistry.

While Wiley and Clarke had originally moved toward a separate national society, Munroe and others felt that it would be better to remake the American Chemical Society (New York) into a national society. Munroe, who was a strong supporter of the local sections concept, proposed that the solution lay in having the New York chemists organize a local section, instead of designating its monthly meetings as meetings of the national society. This solution was accepted with some reservation by the secessionists. Clarke and Wiley rejoined the American Chemical Society in October 1891; and in December 1891, Wiley was appointed chairman of a group to present a revised constitution to the American Chemical Society. This revision was accepted in August 1892, and in December, Wiley was elected president of the American Chemical Society. The secessionists thus accomplished their objectives, and there was a wholesale return by Washington chemists to membership in the American Chemical Society. Nevertheless, there were some in the Chemical Society of Washington who doubted the victory and after much debate it was agreed, in a "Texas-like reservation,"* to maintain the identity of the older group by retaining the name, "Chemical Society of Washington," in addition to the new name, "Washington Section of the American Chemical Society."

In essence, a new society was created by the Wiley-Clarke-Munroe secession activities, in which the name was absorbed from the New York group, and the Chemical Society of Washington and the New York group both became sections of the national society.

The golden era of 1893 to 1908 saw five members of the Washington Section serving as president of the American Chemical Society. These were Harvey W. Wiley (1893 and 1894); Charles E. Munroe (who moved to Washington in 1893) (1898); William McMurtrie (1900); Frank W. Clarke (1901); and William F. Hillebrand (1906. Since the end of Hillebrand's term of office in 1906, the prestige and role of the government scientist in the Society has waned, and no other governmental scientist has held this influential position in Society affairs.

Several "near misses" have been recorded, in which former Washington Section members rose to eminence after they left the government. W. A. Noyes, Sr., was a member of the local section from 1903-1907, during which time, in addition to serving as chief chemist of the National Bureau of Standards, he was national secretary of the American Chemical Society, editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and creator and editor of the first volumes of Chemical Abstracts. He became president of the American Chemical Society in 1920, while serving as chairman of the Department of chemistry of the University of Illinois, when few associated him as a former government scientist.

Again, in 1940, S. C. Lind served as president. He was then director of the School of Chemistry of the University of Minnesota, and few recalled his Washington sojourn as chief chemist at the Bureau of Mines (1918 to 1923), a position which C. L. Parsons held from 1911 to 1917, while serving as national secretary of the American Chemical Society.

For some 14 years of the Society's history, the secretary of the Society was a government scientist and maintained his office in government quarters. In fact, since the move of the Society headquarters to Washington in 1903, the Secretary has always been a scientist who has at one time or another served "time" as a career government scientist.

In recent years, presidents of the American Chemical Society have come to Washington (to become members of the Washington Section) after completion of their normal tour of duty in industry or university, to accept advisory or directive position in the government to guide or advise the career government scientist on his activities; but no career government scientists have served as president even though some 15 percent of the nation's chemists are government employees, while 21 percent are academic and 64 percent industrial.

The five principal founding participants mentioned above-Wiley, McMurtrie, Clark, Munroe, and Hillebrand-lived to an average age of 80. The last of them, Munroe, died in 1938 at the age of 89; he was at that time the last surviving charter member of the American Chemical Society, having been a member for 62 years. There are many members of the ACS Washington Section who can today, with pride, lay claim to personal acquaintance with several of these leaders who were instrumental in the founding of both the ACS Washington Section and the Chemical Society of Washington.

Perhaps it is well that the Washington Section of the American Chemical Society maintains its dual identity , and not only serves as a strong participant in the national chemical organization, but also retain the independent spirit of its founders in promoting a recognition of responsibilities and activity among the local members of the Society.

 

* The Republic of Texas, in joining the Union, reserved certain actions, such as further subdivision, to its own future decision.

²Wallace R. Brode, The Capital Chemist, April, 1963, pp. 89-92

References

Browne, C. A. A History of the American Chemical Society-Seventy-five eventful years. American Chemical Society, Washington, 1952.

Brown, C. A. The Chemical Society of Washington and its part in the reorganization of the American Chemical Society. J. Wash. Acad. Sci., 28, 233 (1938). (Abstracted in The Capital Chemist 1, 32 (1951). )

Brode, Wallace R. American Chemical Society address-From pre-P.O. box to the present. (Part of a dedication address at the ACS building dedication ceremonies, October 7, 1960.) Chem. Eng. News, 83, 114 (October 31, 1960).

Brode, Wallace R. Harvey W. Wiley and our national science policy. (Banquet address at 74^th annual meeting of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists, October 10, 1960.) J. Assoc. Official Agr. Chem. 44, 111 (1961).

CSW's First President, Thomas Antisell ¹

Eighty-four years ago [now 123 years ago] when the Chemical Society of Washington was formed, the dean of local chemists was Thomas Antisell, examiner in the Patent Office. To show their regard for him his colleagues elected him first president of the Society.

Antisell was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1817. Educated as a physician he became as much interested in chemistry as in medicine and studied under a number of famous chemists-Dumas, Pelouze, Berzelius and Kane. He practiced medicine in Dublin, taught scientific subjects, wrote on agricultural chemistry, and left Ireland because of political unrest.

He arrived in New York City in November 1848, and opened a medical office and a chemistry laboratory. Antisell is said to have been the first chemist in New York to give laboratory instruction to women. While living in New York he journeyed north for a few months each year to teach chemistry at Berkshire Medical Institution, Massachusetts, and at Vermont Medical College.

In 1848 he entered the government service as geologist on Lieutenant John G. Parke's Pacific railroad survey and made a reconnaissance of parts of California and Arizona. The survey completed, he came to Washington where he lived for a time at 106 Gay Street.

"In 1856", he wrote, "I was appointed chief examiner in the U.S. Patent Office and for some years had the sole charge of the class of chemical inventions, until, at the commencement of the war, I voluntarily resigned to enter the military service as Brigade Surgeon and was promoted as surgeon of volunteers in which capacity I was occupied in important professional duties." Antisell was much too modest when he wrote this. He saw the shock of the infantry charge and heard the crash of exploding shells on many fields. William Seaman, an early chemist in the Department of Agriculture, said that "he was noted for his reckless disregard of personal dangers...when the wounded required attention in the rear of the line of battle, and probably saved the life of many a poor fellow by the prompt and skillful aid he rendered." Besides serving in the field, Antisell was surgeon in charge at Harewood, a large Civil War hospital located on 7^th Street near Soldiers' Home. He was mustered out in 1865 with the rank of brevet lieutenant colonel.

The war over, Antisell went to the three-year-old Department of Agriculture. He analyzed agricultural specimens and minerals, he investigated canceling inks for the Post Office Department and building stone for the Treasury Department (Agriculture's chemist for a long time acted as chemist for most of the federal government), and he analyzed and estimated the fertilizer value of mud from the old Washington canal.

At this period the Japanese were developing the resources and industries of their country. Their government asked Secretary of Agriculture Horace Capron to provide technical assistance. In 1871 Capron went to Japan, taking Antisell with him. Antisell was involved in the development of inks for paper currency, dextrin for the post office, and other matters. He "regarded his life in Japan with the utmost satisfaction" and left "reluctantly" in 1877 only because Mrs. Antisell's health was failing. Before he sailed the Emperor decorated him and made him a nobleman of the empire with the right to carry two swords.

Antisell returned to Washington, 1311 Q Street, N.W., and again entered the Patent office as an examiner. Here he remained until 1891, age 74, when gradual paralysis forced him to retire.

In addition to acting as chemist for Agriculture and the Patent Office, Antisell taught at Georgetown from 1858 to 1869 and 1880 to 1882. He handled a variety of subjects including hygiene, military surgery, physiology, pathology, chemistry (1858-1863, 1880-1882), toxicology (1858-63, 1880-82) and physiological chemistry (1866-69). He also taught chemistry at University of Maryland, 1869-70. Educators came to have a high opinion of Antisell's talent and ability. He was offered the presidency of Franklin and Marshall in mid-60's, and of a college in Cairo, Egypt, in the '70's.

He lived in Washington half his life, and a number of his talks and publications are associated with the city. His earliest talk in Washington, so far as I know, was in 1859 before the long-extinct Washington Art Association on solvents and pigments. That same year he issued a book, The Manufacture of Photogenic or Hydro-carbon Oils, based on literature in "the well-furnished Library of the Patent Office." A decade later he wrote a report on the sanitary condition of Washington. At least four pamphlets were printed in Washington, 1859-1865, containing Antisell's addresses to Georgetown students. He investigated the ventilating system of the Capitol and sanitation at the famous National Hotel which stood on the northeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 6^th Street.

Because of Antisell's versatility his articles and titles of his talks are scattered through publications devoted to different subjects, and I imagine it would be practically impossible to compile a complete list. I have come across 6 writings on agricultural chemistry, 3 on geology, 4 on public health, 1 on oceanography, 2 on physiological chemistry, 1 on biography, 5 valedictory and inaugural addresses in pamphlet form, and 2 books.

The accompanying picture [not reproduced here] shows Antisell in his wartime surgeon's uniform. One of his colleagues said that "in official life he had the reputation of being reserved and even somewhat brusque, but among his friends he was cordial and even warmhearted, with an abundant supply of wit and humor." According to another, "he led a very unobtrusive home-life, rarely appearing in public except where his duty called him. He was faithful to duty and conscientious in its performance, unostentatious in manner, and cordial in friendship." He died in 1893, age 76, and was buried in Congressional Cemetery.

 

¹Wyndham D. Miles, National Institutes of Health, The Capital Chemist, January 1968, pp. 7-9.