The position and prospects of chemical research in Great Britain : presidential address delivered at the Annual General Meeting of the Chemical Society, March 22nd, 1907 / by Raphael Meldola.

  • Meldola, Raphael, 1849-1915.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The position and prospects of chemical research in Great Britain : presidential address delivered at the Annual General Meeting of the Chemical Society, March 22nd, 1907 / by Raphael Meldola. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ing from the establishment of a great industry, we must not forget that below the chorus of praise and congratulation, so justly sounded in honour of the founder, there was flowing an under- current of thought which, in some of the addresses and speeches, found verbal expression—the thought that this industry owed its existence to scientific research, and that it had been developed into its present magnitude by the never-ceasing applications of research. Certainly, Perkin himself has never lost an opportunity of driving home this lesson either to his scientific colleagues or to the general public. I have no desire to exalt the coal-tar industry into a position of undue prominence, although I have myself served an apprenticeship thereto, but it is now quite notorious that no branch of modern industry has ever furnished such a striking object-lesson in the application of scientific research to industrial progress. I confess that there was sore temptation in sketching the out- lines of this address to take advantage of last year’s jubilee, in order to treat specifically of the history of the coal-tar industry from the point of view of the bearing of pure scientific discovery upon its progress and development. It is thought by many who are acquainted with this chapter in the history of chemistry that there is still scope for such a thesis. On the present occasion, however, it is perhaps better to avoid handling a topic which must necessarily be more or less technical, especially in view of the fact that this aspect of the subject has already been dealt with to some extent by chemists, many of whom are well qualified to speak with expert authority. It is only necessary to remind you of the addresses delivered before the German Chemical Society in 1890 in honour of Kekule, on the occasion of the celebration of the foundation of the benzene theory; of the Griess obituary notices by Hofmann, Emil Fischer, and Caro, published by the same Society in 1891; of Caro’s well-known lecture on the in- dustry, delivered before the German Chemical Society in 1892; of the Hofmann memorial lectures, delivered before this Society in 1896 by Lord Playfair, Sir F. Abel, Dr. Perkin, and Dr. Arm- strong; and of the recent lecture by A. v. Baeyer, given in honour of the Perkin jubilee. Speaking generally, it may be said that all the great steps, the new departures in the industry of coal-tar products, have been the outcome of pioneering work carried on in the first place without immediate reference to practical results. All honour to those who have developed these results into manu- facturing operations, but honour in the first place to the scientific pioneers! This is the real lesson taught by the celebrations of last July. It may be of interest to consider in the next place