DISCOVERY OF A NEW PRODUCT

In the annual report of the Bureau of Standards for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1920, page 129, is found the first report on a commercial process for manufacturing pure dextrose. In this report it was announced that for the first time dextrose had been separated from a water solution. It is stated:

"Previous methods for the preparation of the pure substance have demanded the use of alcoholic solvents."

It is stated further down on the same page:

"In carrying this investigation to a successful conclusion the Bureau has -virtually created a new industry of great magnitude. * * * The magnitude of the commercial possibilities of the new sugar is shown by the fact that one of the largest corporations in the country requested the Bureau to design a large scale experimental plant costing approximately one-half million dollars. This has been done and the plant is now practically completed."

A careful re-reading of the original bill which was enacted into a law, fails to find any warrant for, the architectural excursions which the Bureau of Standards confesses to have made. Let us examine for a moment some authorities relating to this discovery. In Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, issue of July 10, 1924, News Edition, on page 2, Ifind the following copied from an address made by T. B. Wagner, for many years chief chemist for the Corn Products Company, the corporation for which the Bureau of Standards designed a half-million dollar factory. It was on the occasion of the presentation to the Chemists Club of New York City of a portrait of Dr. Arno Behr, for many years chief chemist of the Corn Products Company, and one of the most eminent carbohydrate chemists this country has produced. Dr. Wagner said, in speaking of the earlier investigations of Dr. Behr, some Menty or twenty-five years prior to the new discovery of the Bureau of Standards:

"It was while engaged in the refining of cane sugar that Dr. Behr turned to a study of the chemistry of corn and while following these pursuits he discovered a simple method of producing without the aid of alcohol, crystallized, anhydrous dextrose of great purity and beauty. * * * That was over forty years ago, and it is curious therefore to note the Director of one of,the important Government Bureaus in Washington coming forth at so recent a date as July 1, 1920 with the announcement * * * that * * * the Bureau has shown that a pure, white dextrose may be obtained by crystallization from a water solution and may be easily separated from the mother liquor by using a centrifugal machine. Previous methods for the preparation of the pure substance have demanded the use of alcoholic solvents.

Dr. Wagner adds:

"These are almost exactly the words employed by Dr. Behr in his patent specifications of 1883. Being on the subject I will be pardoned, perhaps, for commenting upon another discovery pertaining to the discovery of pure dextrose and described in the same report in the following language:

'Two processes were investigated. In the one which met with almost immediate success the converted starch liquor was boiled in a vacuum until concentrated to 42° Baumй, and was then dropped into a crystallizer. It was then inoculated with pure crystals of dextrose and agitated until the crystallization was complete.'"

Dr. Wagner then continues as follows:

"That is the substance of U. S. Patent 835, 145, issued on Nov. 6, 1906, of which I happen to be the author."

The Bureau of Standards sent a representative to a large glucose manufacturing company to apply the process on a large commercial scale of operation. It is interesting to inquire whether the Bureau's process, which was discovered about one hundred and thirteen years before the Bureau discovered it and had been practiced in commercial production frequently, succeeded in making the new discovery practical in the special factory costing a half million dollars, which was built upon architectural plans supplied by the Bureau of Standards. As we are dealing here with United States patents there is no harm in calling names. Mr. Newkirk, who was the man sent to introduce this new process, which was to establish a new industry on a magnificent scale, succeeded in doing so with the knowledge he obtained in working out these plans in the Bureau of Standards. It was not long before he resigned from the Bureau of Standards to accept the position of chief dextrose-maker for the Corn Products Company. After he left the Bureau of Standards Mr. Newkirk began to take out patents on the new process of manufacture. He filed an application for a patent on Nov. 16, 1922, and the patent was issued to him, No. 1,471,347, on October 23, 1923, and assigned by him to the Corn Products Refining Company, a corporation of New York. The title of the patent is "Method of Making Grape Sugar." He says in this application:

"I have found that by making a radical departure from the methods usually employed in the manufacture of grape sugar, a sugar of very close to absolute purity can be produced by a process which is relatively simple and is economically practical."

This shows, if it shows anything, that the method devised by the Bureau of Standards wouldn't work economically. He clinched this conclusion by continuing:

" Dextrose or grape sugar of high purity has been made heretofore, but never, so far as I am aware, on a commercial scale by methods which can be regarded as feasible from its economic point of view."

The Bureau of Standards' own expert in this language denies that the great discovery which founded a new industry was economically workable.

Mr. Newkirk continues his assertions of the failure of all previous processes, as follows:

"Failure of previous experimentors to realize the importance of these considerations accounts for the practical unworkability of many of the processes described in the literature for manufacturing high purity grape sugar. By accident when conditions were just right a satisfactory product might be produced. But there was no certainty that another batch, treated in apparently the same way, would not prove a failure. Obviously manufacture on a commercial scale under these conditions was impossible. Other processes, theoretically possible, have proved too expensive for commercial utility. Hence a literature disclosing apparently repeated successful solution of a problem, which as a matter of fact, has not prior to the present invention received any satisfactory solution."

It seems, therefore, that the Bureau of Standards was somewhat mistaken in having claimed to make the only discovery which put this great industry on its feet. Either a mistake was made by the Bureau, or Mr. Newkirk has done the Bureau of Standards a grievous wrong.

The Bureau of Standards not only claims the discovery of a process which has created, or will create a new industry, but it specifies particularly the things which it has discovered. Before their experiments, which evidently were carried on immediately prior to 1920, they stated that all previous preparations of dextrose were from alcoholic solutions. In a patent, No. 256,623, dated April 18, 1882, issued to Arno Behr, he makes the following statement:

In carrying out my process I form a watery solution of grape-sugar containing, say, thirteen per cent. of water and deposit the same in a suitable tank or vessel, and maintain it at a temperature of about 90° Fahrenheit for a period of one to two weeks, or until thorough crystallization has taken place. * * * In order to somewhat hasten crystallization, I introduce into the concentrated solution a minute quantity of finely-divided crystallized anhydrous grape-sugar previously prepared."

Thus it is seen that two of the discoveries of the Bureau of Standards, one, that dextrose could be crystallized from an aqueous solution, and the other that it could be hastened by the addition of previously crystallized dextrose, were known and patented forty years prior to this great discovery. The fact that the temperature should be kept up to or, above blood heat for the purpose, of making anhydrous dextrose is clearly pointed out in the patent issued to T. B. Wagner (No. 259,794, dated June 20, 1882). He says:

"Prior to my invention it was known that crystallized anhydride of grape-sugar could be produced by dissolving grape sugar in strong alcohol and crystallizing it from the alcoholic solution; but in this process it is difficult to entirely free the resulting product from all traces of alcohol and from an unpleasant flavor resulting from impurities contained in commercial alcohol. My improved product,, which consists of pure crystallized anhydrous grape-sugar, entirely free from all traces of alcohol, may be made in various ways from water solutions of grape sugar."

The claim he makes is as follows:

"I claim as my invention a new article of manufacture, crystallized anhydrous grape-sugar, free from any trace or flavor of alcohol or its impurities, produced from a watery solution of grape-sugar.

In a patent issued to T. B. Wagner, No. 835,145, dated Nov. 6, 1906, the following purpose of the invention is described:

"The object of my invention is to produce anhydrous grape-sugar from corn or other analogous farinaceous material by a method in which the yield of sugar is larger, its quality is purer, the time required for its production is shortened, and the amount of labor required is materially lessened. I have found that all of these results may be obtained by abandoning that part of the present process which has heretofore been considered neeessary--that is keeping the crystals during the process of generation in as quiet and still a condition as possible, and on the contrary employing the principle of crystallization in motion."

From the above citations it seems plain that the claims made by the Bureau of Standards as the original discoverers of this great industry are, to say the least, contrary to historical evidence.