Prometheans in the Lab: Chemistry and the making of the modern world by
Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0071350071, $22.95
FRENCH chemist Claude Louis Berthollet turned the world鈥檚 sheets from dull
grey to sparkling white in 1785 when he demonstrated that chlorine bleaches
fabric. Before that, it took six months to bleach a piece of linen using
sunlight and buttermilk.
Later, William Perkin transformed the world into a riot of colour, founding
the dye industry at the age of 21. And another French chemist, Nicholas LeBlanc,
found a feasible way of manufacturing sodium carbonate鈥斺�漺hite gold鈥�, some
called it鈥攁llowing the mass production of soap and thereby aiding the
production of cheap fabric. Without these three pioneers of the chemicals
industry, most people鈥檚 wardrobes would stop at grey linen and wool.
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Sharon Bertsch McGrayne鈥檚 appealing collection of biographical essays reminds
us how much we owe to chemistry. Have you ever heard of Norbert Rillieux, a free
man of colour in pre-Civil War New Orleans who pioneered the extraction of
sugar? It鈥檚 humbling to read of his fight to keep his patents鈥攁nd his
dignity.
The most moving story is of Wallace Carothers, the father of polymer
chemistry and inventor of nylon. This brilliant and charming man struggled
against mental and physical illnesses, which may have been exacerbated by
exposure to lab chemicals, and committed suicide at the age of 41.
Industrial chemistry is too often made the whipping boy for all our
environmental problems. It鈥檚 good to get a bit of perspective and this book
provides just that.