Chemical product

“ The view long maintained—until late in the nineteenth century, in fact—that organic and inorganic chemistry are separated from each other by a wide gap, is no longer held. Hundreds of organic substances, some of them of great complexity, have been made in the chemist’s laboratory, and can now be classed as properly with inorganic as with organic substances. The gap has been closed, and there is now but one chemistry. Only the most intricate chemical compounds still lie beyond the chemist’s grasp, and the isolation of these may be at any time overthrown. ”

“ After becoming acquainted with the constituent elements of all the substances within our reach and the mutual relations of these elements, the remarkable transmutations to which the bodies are subject under the influence of the vital powers of plants and animals, became the principal object of chemical investigations, and the highest point of interest. A new science, inexhaustible as life itself, is here presented us, standing upon the sound and solid foundation of a well established inorganic chemistry. ”

“ The synthesis of other so-called organic compounds followed, and at present it is known that the same chemical laws apply to all substances whether formed in the living organism or prepared in the laboratory from inorganic constituents. ”

“ Our chemists found that starting with simple substances they could, by proper means, combine them into molecules of greater complexity, and in so doing could make many of the compounds that had hitherto been produced only as a result of living activities. For example, urea, formic acid, indigo, and many other bodies, hitherto produced only by animals and plants, were easily produced by the chemist by purely chemical methods. ”

“ When oxygen combines with a single element, what is the compound called? We have found that O makes up a certain portion of the air; later, we shall see how large the proportion is. Its tendency to combine with almost everything is a reason for the decay, rust, and oxidation of so many substances, and for conflagrations, great and small. New compounds are thusformed, of which O constitutes one factor. Water, H2O, is only a chemical union of O and H. Iron rust, Fe2O3 and H2O, is composed of O, Fe, and water. The burning of wood or of coal gives rise to carbon dioxide, CO2, and water. ”

“ It brings home to me what an unstable chemical compound man is. Here are the stage accessories as good as ever, while the players have all split up into hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and carbon, with traces of iron and silica and phosphorus. ”

“ The fundamental task of inorganic chemistry is still connected with the classification of elements and compounds. The investigation of the classification of carbon compounds forms the field of organic chemistry; while general or physical chemistry deals with the laws of reaction, and the influence of various forms of energy in furthering or hindering chemical change. ”

“ In organic as in inorganic chemistry, atoms are bound together by chemical affinity, though it was formerly supposed that an additional or vital force was instrumental in forming organic compounds. For this reason none of these substances, it was thought, could be built up in the laboratory, although many had been analyzed. In 1828 the first organic compound, urea, was artificially prepared, and since then thousands have been synthesized. They are not necessarily manufactured from organic products, but can be made from mineral matter. ”

“ The answer, as I learned from Loa, was that the native clothing, and likewise the food, was manufactured synthetically. From the most ordinary chemical ingredients—from oxygen and hydrogen as contained in water, from carbon as contained in carbon dioxide or in coal, from the nitrogen found in the air, and from the sulphur and phosphorus of the mines—they would create compounds resembling natural organic products. ”

“ The peculiar manner in which hydrogen gas appears to dissolve solid substances,—as iron, potassium, sodium, sulphur, phosphorus, selenium, and arsenic, may be explained by regarding the results as a manifestation of the powers of chemical affinity over the forms of bodies. In like manner, the solution of salt in water, or the mixture of alcohol in that fluid, may be viewed as chemical phenomena, although usually considered as simple cases of solution or mixture: alterations of temperature and other physical changes taking place in either. ”

“ The Work comprehends as far as possible all rulles and tables required by the Analyst, Brewer, Distiller, Acid- and Alkali-Manufacturer, &c., &c.; and also the principal data in Thermo-chemistry, Electro-chemistry, and the various branches of Chemical Physics. Every possible care has been taken to ensure perfect accuracy, and to include the results of the most recent investigations. ”

“ When this element, nitrogen, is combined with the wonderful variety of compounds formed by carbon, we have not only a great many intimately related yet distinct [100] substances, but compounds which readily change from one form to another. These are the distinctive qualities or conditions necessary, from a chemical standpoint, to make the processes of life possible. Protoplasm, which is the basis of all life, is formed by an intimate mixture of a number of complex chemical compounds, the chief elements of which are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. ”

“ Chemistry plays a part in every phase of life; in the arts, the industries, the household, and in the body itself, where digestion, excretion, etc., result from the action of the bodily fluids upon food. The chemical substances of most interest to us are those which affect us personally rather than industrially; for example, soap, which cleanses our bodies, our clothing, our household possessions; washing soda, which lightens laundry work; lye, which clears out the drain pipe clogged with grease; benzine, which removes stains from clothing ”

“ The value of certain chemical compounds as artificial manures is fully recognised, yet many attempts are being made to prove the value of other substances for the same purpose, with a view to increase in efficiency and decrease in cost. ”

“ The subject of Organic Chemistry is that to which, at the present day, the eyes of all thinking members of the profession are directed, and upon which their hope of progress mainly depends,—the relations of chemical action to the functions of organized matter, the application of chemistry to physiology and pathology, are to be treated of as fully as present knowledge extends. ”

“ In the lectures and recitations a systematic study of the aliphatic and aromatic compounds is undertaken. In the laboratory certain selected experiments in the analysis and synthesis of organic compounds is carried out as well as exercises in the study of the chemical properties of various classes of compounds. The course is conducted with special reference to the industrial applications of organic chemistry. Some of the newer physico-chemical tools used in the study of the science will be considered. ”

“ There are only about a dozen primary products extracted from coal tar, but from these the chemist is able to build up hundreds of thousands of new substances. This is true creative chemistry, for most of these compounds are not to be found in plants and never existed before they were made in the laboratory. It used to be thought that organic compounds, the products of vegetable and animal life, could only be produced by organized beings, that they were created out of inorganic matter by the magic touch of some "vital principle." ”

“ C. Every liquid which, when placed in a white porcelain vessel to the depth of one inch, exhibits under daylight distinct color.
D. Every liquid which contains in solution, in every 100,000 [8] parts by weight, more than two parts of any metal, except calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium.
E. Every liquid which in every 100,000 parts by weight contains in solution, suspension, chemical combination or otherwise, more than 0.5 metallic arsenic.
F. Every liquid which, after the addition of sulphuric acid, contains in every 100,000 parts by weight more than one part of free chlorine. ”

“ So the synthesis of a single organic compound sufficed at a blow to break down the chemical barrier which the imagination of the fathers of the science had erected between animate and inanimate nature. Thenceforth the philosophical chemist would regard the plant and animal organisms as chemical laboratories in which conditions are peculiarly favorable for building up complex compounds of a few familiar elements, under the operation of universal chemical laws. ”

“ They absorb oxygen from the surrounding medium, air or water, and, in addition to certain inorganic substances, take into their bodies, as their proper nutritive material, complicated protein compounds, which they derive either directly or indirectly from plants. Through the oxidation of these compounds they form substances of a simpler chemical structure, such as carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, and discharge these through their bodies as waste. ”

“ The chemist is even more ingenious and more of a benefactor than his predecessor of the nineteenth century. He has produced from coal oil, in paying quantities, both sugar and vinegar; and has also solved the problem of making sugar from starch.
The majority of fabrics are rendered, by chemical processes, proof against fire and mildew; and the law renders the use of such fireproof substances compulsory where wood, cloth or paper is used in building construction.
Medical and chemical science has so far advanced that special foods are devised for particular parts of the body. ”

“ At present a whole series of genuine organic substances, such as alcohol, various kinds of ether, grape sugar, organic acids, fats, alkaloids, vegetable oils or perfumes, etc., are being manufactured in a purely chemical way, and the hope is well founded that in course of time we may also succeed in preparing directly from the elements sugars and albumins—yea, even the protoplasm or that organic primal substance out of which all living beings are evolving. ”

“ It is not impossible but that the coats of their stomachs may be, in some measure, tanned, or hardened by the constant use of this liquor; but you must remember that where a number of other chemical agents are concerned, and, above all, where life exists, no certain chemical inference can be drawn. ”

“ Of which is the sugar experiment an example? Metathesis is an exchange of atoms in two different compounds; it gives rise to still other compounds.
A chemical change may add something to a substance, or subtract something from it, or it may both subtract and add, making a new substance with entirely different properties. Sulphur and carbon are two stable solids. The chemical union of the two forms a volatile liquid. A substance may be at one time a solid, at another a liquid, at another a gas, and yet not undergo any chemical change, because in each case the chemical composition is identical. ”

“ By this simple but beautiful plan of weighting the carbon, it is rendered possible to employ a soda compound which is decomposed at a much lower temperature than that hitherto used, and to carry on the process in large and durable vessels, instead of in small cylinders, which have a very short life. Having thus given a short account of the chemical process, we will describe the commercial method of manufacture. ”

“ The chemical combination of two substances produces, as is well known, a third substance, with properties different from those of either of the two substances separately, or of both of them taken together. Not a trace of the properties of hydrogen or of oxygen is observable in those of their compound, water. The taste of sugar of lead is not the sum of the tastes of its component elements, acetic acid and lead or its oxide ”

“ In a mechanical mixture, as we have seen, the elements which are to react one upon another are brought together in separate bodies. In gunpowder, for example, the carbon is contained in the charcoal, and the oxygen in the saltpetre. But in a chemical compound, these elements are brought together in the same body. In a mechanical mixture, we may put what proportion of oxygen we please. But elements combine chemically only in certain definite proportions, so that in the chemical compound we can introduce only a certain definite proportion of oxygen. ”

“ Certain compounds have been predicted from a theoretical molecular structure, then made, and afterwards found to exist in plants. Others are made that have no known natural existence. The source of a large number of artificial organic products is coal-tar, from bituminous coal. Saccharine, a compound with two hundred and eighty times the sweetening power of sugar, is one of its latest products. Wood, bones, and various fermentable liquids are other sources of organic compounds. ”

“ The most interesting and, in many respects, the most important, development of the last twenty-five years has been in electro-chemistry. Electro-chemical methods are now employed for the production of a large number of elements, such as the alkali and alkaline earth metals, copper, zinc, aluminum, chromium, manganese, the halogens, phosphorus, hydrogen, oxygen, and ozone; various chemicals, including the mineral acids, hydrates, chlorates, hypochlorites, chromates, permanganates, disinfectants, alkaloids, coal tar dyes, and various carbon compounds ”

“ He should also be made clearly to distinguish between the essential features of the process and the different accessories, which may be more or less accidental—such, for example, as the water used in determining the combination of iron and sulphur, or the flame which accompanies combustion.
After a clear conception has been gained of a chemical process, with its definite factors and definite products, we are prepared for the next important [Pg 252] step. Every chemical process obeys three fundamental laws:
The Law of Conservation of Mass. ”