Prometheans in the Lab: Chemistry and the Making of the Modern World
Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
McGraw Hill: New York, 2001, 243 pp
$24.95 hardcover ISBN 0-07-135007-1

“Their discoveries—white clothes, cheap soap and sugar, brightly colored washable fabric, clean water, fertilizer, powerful aviation and automotive fuel, safe refrigerants, synthetic textiles, pesticides, and lead-free fuel and food—were enthusiastically embraced by the buying public. Few of us today would want to do without them. In time, however, some of these scientific discoveries—even those that in their day made major reforms—produced their own set of difficulties. In each case where this occurred, the burden of identifying and solving the problem fell to science.”

Prometheans in the Lab: Chemistry and the Making of the Modern World, by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, shares dramatic, fascinatingly detailed accounts of scientists and their everyday discoveries. These discoveries made improvements on items that we now use on a daily basis—and may take for granted. The nine chapters of Prometheans in the Lab thoroughly examine the enormous role of chemistry, and the scientists behind it, in shaping current society.

The pioneers examined by McGrayne, taking up a chapter each, are Nicolas Leblanc, William Henry Perkin, Norbert Rillieux, Edward Frankland, Fritz Haber, Thomas Midgley, Jr., Wallace Hume Carothers, Paul Hermann Müller, and Clair C. Patterson.

Nicolas Leblanc (1742–1806), who had a reputation as a “wannabe” scientist, was the inventor of the industrial process used to make soap. Before Leblanc revolutionized large-scale soap production and made it attainable for all, soap was a luxury for the rich and a medicinal salve for the sick. Unfortunately, this method also produced a great deal of pollution, which spawned an early environmental reform movement.

Another inventor, Norbert Rillieux (1806–1894), a free African-American, was the creator of the triple-effect evaporator, which is used today in industry to evaporate large amounts of liquid. This process is used to condense and powder milk, instant coffee, soup, and meat extracts and in distilling processes at petroleum, paper, and nuclear power plants.

More for the Shelf Before Big Science: The Pursuit of Modern Chemistry and Physics, 1800–1940 Mary Jo Nye. Harvard University Press, 1999. Creations of Fire: Chemistry’s Lively History from Alchemy to the Atomic Age Cathy Cobb and Harold Goldwhite. Perseus Press, 2001. Clean Hands: Clair Patterson’s Crusade Against Environmental Lead Contamination Cliff I. Davidson (Ed.). Nova Science Publishers, 1998. Wallace Carothers and the Story of Dupont Nylon (Unlocking the Secrets of Science) Ann Gaines. Mitchell Lane Publishers, 2001.

How proud would the average homeowner be of their yard if it weren’t for Fritz Haber (1868–1934), the discoverer of how to convert nitrogen from the air into ammonia for fertilizer? The nitrogen-fixation process has saved millions of people from starvation in the 20th century, a time in which the Earth’s population quadrupled. However, fertilizer wasn’t the only application of Haber’s mind. The goal of developing wartime military capabilities was a primary one for Germany in the early 20th century, and nitrogen fixation offered access to potential explosive substances. Swept up in nationalism, Haber became heavily involved in Germany’s military effort and ended up inaugurating and directing Germany’s chemical warfare program during World War I.

Clair C. Patterson was a geochemist who used the neurotoxin lead to determine the age of the Earth and the solar system. Through his experiments, he also came to understand how pervasive and dangerous lead was. Patterson fought giant industries, governmental agencies, and other scientists using hard data he had collected over decades of research, until lead was eliminated from gasoline and food containers. Before he battled for sanctions against lead, Americans fueled their cars with leaded gasoline, ate food and drank milk from lead-soldered cans, stored drinking water in lead-lined tanks, and transported it through lead-soldered pipes. Americans also squeezed toothpaste from lead-lined tubes and poured wine from bottles sealed with lead-covered corks. Before the 1960s, Americans ingested a total of about 20 tons of lead each year. Thanks to Patterson and his discovery of global pollution, lead has been taken out of the American diet.

In attention-grabbing prose, McGrayne explores the chemical roots, extending back to the 18th century, of our modern way of life. Through the profiles of these scientists and the five other “Prometheans” profiled in the book, she brings a new perspective to an array of common luxuries to which most of us don’t generally give a second of thought.