Page 21 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

18 BfiGHAMP OR PASTEUR?
resting till something of these should be revealed. Self-
glorification never occurred to him and while the doings
of Pasteur were being made public property, Bechamp
shut in his quiet laboratory, was immersed in discoveries,
which were simply published later in scientific records
without being heralded by self-advertisement.
The work that he accomplished at Strasbourg was pro-
lific in benefits for France in particular and for the world
at large. It was there that his studies led him to the dis-
covery of a new and cheap method of producing aniline,
which up to 1854 had been so costly as to be useless for
commercial purposes. The German chemist, August
Wilhelm von Hofmann, who for many years carried on
work in England, after investigating the results of earlier
discoveries, produced aniline by subjecting a mixture of
nitro-benzene and alcohol to the reducing action of
hydrochloric acid and zinc. Bechamp, in 1852, showed
that the use of alcohol was unnecessary and that zinc
could be replaced by iron filings, also that either acetic or
hydrochloric acid may be used. 1 By thus simplifying and
cheapening the process, he conferred an enormous benefit
on chemical industry, for the cost of aniline fell at once to
20 francs and later to 15 francs a kilogramme; while,
moreover, his invention has continued in use to the
present day: it is still the foundation of the modern method
of manufacture in the great aniline dye industry, which
has been all too much appropriated by Germany. The
Maison Renard, of Lyons, hearing of Bechamp's discovery,
applied to him and with his help succeeded in a cheap
production of fuchsin, otherwise magenta, and its
varieties. The only return made to Bechamp, however,
was the award, ten years or so later, of a gold medal from
the Industrial Society of Mulhouse. Neither does any
recognition seem to have been made to him for his dis-
covery of a compound of arsenic acid and aniline, which,
under the name of atoxyl, is used in the treatment of skin
diseases and of sleeping sickness.
1
Confirmed in Richter's Organic Chemistry and in Thorpe's Dictionary of
Applied Chemistry (1921).