British Supply of Drugs and Fine Chemicals

Abstract

AT a British Association meeting about twenty years ago an eminent physicist received some rough handling from his chemical colleagues on account of the impurities which were manifestly present in the materials he had used in his experiments. He replied, in effect, that chemists should employ themselves in purifying chemicals for physicists to use. Nowadays chemicals such as he would have desired are made by the ton, chiefly by three firms in Germany. For ordinary chemical, and even physical, research such fine materials are turned out that it may be doubted in many cases if the work done with them is worthy of such refinement. Frequently the chemicals used are better than the chemist who works with them could have produced for himself. For work of the highest degree of refinement, such as the determination of atomic weights, the chemicals which can be purchased cannot be used without much further purification, but even in these eases much time is saved by the previous elimination of the grosser forms of impurity. To those who were in their early days limited to chemicals produced in this country, the standard of purity attained by the German manufacturer came as a revelation, and the study of prices made it clear that the enormous advantage gained by the use of the German materials was obtained at no unreasonable cost. The standard set by the German makers has not even been aimed at by our own countrymen, and the words “pure,” “puriss,” and “absolutely pure, for examination purposes” on the labels, are ludicrously misused. Want of method, want of care, and the employment of workmen instead of chemists in the preparation are at the bottom of the failure.