Other Classic Chemistry Books Recalled

OLD FAVORITES

Sienko & Plane and Morrison & Boyd weren't the only topics of discussion at the ACS national meeting symposium on Landmark Chemistry Books of the 20th Century. Speakers also described a society for chemical bibliophiles, recounted the joys of collecting classic books, and discussed other classic chemistry books that have influenced the field profoundly.

Visiting research scientist James J. Bohning of Lehigh University, who organized the session, explained that it was held to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Bolton Society, a group of chemistry bibliophiles. The society is named for 19th-century chemist Henry C. Bolton, author of Select Bibliography of Chemistry, a definitive list of chemical books published between 1492 and 1892 (later supplemented to include works through 1904).

The Bolton Society brings together those interested in books and other ephemera related to the history of chemistry and chemical technology, Bohning said. We meet twice a year in Philadelphia-ostensibly to conduct business, which is dispensed with very quickly. What follows for several hours thereafter is a show-and-tell session, where items from private collections and treasures from the [Philadelphia-based] Othmer Library of Chemical Heritage are displayed and described and stories are swapped. We also publish a newsletter, Boltonia. We openly welcome new members, and for the present all of this is free.

Scientific publications collector Ronald K. Smeltzer of Princeton, N.J., discussed the joys of collecting scientific books, magazines, dissertations, documents, and reports. He showed a variety of items from his own collection-including a 1916 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society containing the paper in which chemistry professor Gilbert N. Lewis of the University of California, Berkeley, introduced the shared-electron-bond concept and its double-dot symbolism.

California Institute of Technology chemistry professor Linus Pauling's 1939 book, The Nature of the Chemical Bond, was discussed by chemistry professor Carmen J. Giunta of Le Moyne College, Syracuse, N.Y. The book is a lucid and accessible description of quantum mechanics and chemical concepts of bonding by a scientist who helped pioneer both fields, he said. It is one of the most influential chemistry books of the 20th century, Giunta said. Some might even go further. There are grounds for calling it the most influential chemistry text of the 20th century, one of the most influential science texts of the century, or even one of the most influential chemistry books of all time.

Chemistry librarian F. Bartow Culp of Purdue University discussed two books. Chemical Literature, self-published in 1919 by Marion E. Sparks, chemistry librarian at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, was the first book to treat chemical literature as an independent discipline. And Chemical Publications, Their Nature and Use, by assistant professor of chemistry M. G. Mellon of Purdue University, was even more influential in establishing the field. The first edition of Mellon's work was published in 1924. Five editions in all were released, and only Mellon's death in 1993, a few months short of his 100th birthday, interrupted his plans for a sixth edition. That's an unmatched record of longevity for a guide to chemical literature, Culp said.

Chemistry professor William B. Jensen of the University of Cincinnati discussed Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances, a 1923 book by Lewis and Merle Randall, also a chemistry professor at UC Berkeley. The work helped shape the field and permeates our current thermodynamic thinking, Jensen said. And Lewis' monograph Valence and the Structure of Atoms and Molecules, also published in 1923, marks the true beginnings of our electronic theory of bonding, Jensen said.

Lehigh chemistry professor Ned D. Heindel discussed the history of the teaching of organic reaction mechanisms in classic textbooks, such as the evolution from 1861 to 1964 in the use of curly arrows to illustrate electron movement.

Ernest L. Eliel, chemistry professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, didn't claim that his book Stereochemistry of Carbon Compounds is a classic yet, but he said he believes that it helped fill a major void in the field in its time. From sales figures, he estimated that the first edition, published in 1962, educated about 100,000 chemists on stereochemistry at a time this subject was still opaque to many.

A 1994 update, coauthored with the late chemistry professor Samuel H. Wilen of City College, New York, may not increase the readership figure all that much, but Eliel said he hopes that it continues to help teachers as well as researchers better understand this challenging subject.

Emeritus professor of chemistry Leon Gortler of Brooklyn College discussed Physical Organic Chemistry, a 1940 work by Columbia University chemistry professor Louis P. Hammett. At the time it was published, research on organic reaction mechanisms had not yet been defined as a subdiscipline, Gortler said. Hammett's book provided researchers in the field with a name and identity: They were now to be known as physical organic chemists. Physical Organic Chemistry gave order to the new field and helped guide its research agenda for two decades following its publication, Gortler said-giving yet another example of the tremendous influence a great book can have.