Perkin Medal - Industrial & Engineering Chemistry (ACS Publications)

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P E R K I N MEDAL Awarded to Thomas Midgley, Jr., f o r distinguished work i n applied chemistry, including the development of antiknock motor f uels and saf e refrigerants.

HE Perkin Medal of the TSociety of Chemical Industry for 1937 was presented to Thomas Midgley, Jr., vice president of Ethyl G a s o l i n e Corporation, on January 8, 1937, at a joint m e e t i n g of the American S e c t i o n of the Society of Chemical Industry and the New York Section of the A M E R I C A NC H E M I C A L SOCIETY a t The Chemists’ Club, New York. Marston T. Bogert of C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y presented the THOMAS MIDGLEY,JR. medal and Robert E. Wilson, vice chairman of the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company, spoke on the accomplishments of the medalist. Mr. Midgley Ohen delivered the medalist’s address entitled “From the Periodic Table t o Production.” The Perkin Medal was founded in 1906 in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the coal tar color industry, the first medal being awarded to Sir William H. Perkin, discoverer of aniline dyes. The medal may be awarded annually by the American Section of the Society of Chemical Industry for the most valuable work in applied chemistry. The award may

be made to any chemist residing in the United States of America for work which he has done a t any time during his career, whether this work proved successful at the time of execution or publication, or whether i t became valuable in subsequent development of the industry. The medalist is chosen by a committee representing this society, the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, the American Electrochemical Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the Soci6t6 de Chimie Industrielle. (For list of achievements of each medalist up to 1934, see IND. ENG.CHEM.,February, 1933, page 229.) The list of medalists from the date of founding to the present is as follows:

1906 1908 I909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1916 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922

Sir William H. Perkin J. B. F. Herreshoff Arno Behr E. G. Acheson Charles M. Hall Herman Frasch James Gayley John W. Hyatt Edward Weston Leo H. Baekeland Ernst Twitchell Augnste J. Rossi F. G . Cottrell Charles F. Chandler Willis R. Whitney William M. Burton

1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937

Milton C. Whitaker Frederick M. Beoket Hugh K. Moore R. B. Moore John E. Teeple Irving Lsngmuir E. C. Sullivan Herbert H. Dow Arthur D. Little Charles F. Burgess George Oenslager Colin G . Fink George 0. Curme, Jr Warren K. Lewis Thomas .Midgley, Jr

The Medalist AN EFFORT t o qualify as INanexpert on this subject I must staI.t by saying that I first met

ROBERT E. WILSON Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, New York, N. Y.

t h e me d a1is t forty-three years ago when he was approximately four times as old as I. Fortunately for him, he has not been able to maintain this ratio, but it did leave me under a psychological handicap which it, has never been quite possible to overcome. His family soon moved away from our birthplace, and Tom and I have never since lived in the 9am.e city, but about twenty years ago we apparently simultaneously decided to join the Ancient Order of Convention Hounds and soon developed almost a genius for getting appointed to the same committees or elected to the same boards. As a result there has scarcely been a period of three months during that time when we have not been brought together by some convention or committee of the A. C. S., S. A. E., A. S. T. M., or some other of the pre-New Deal alphabetical agencies, and thus we have had frequent opportunities to exchange views on our current researches and recent scientific developments, and even to enjoy some rather one-sided philosophical discussions. Upon one such occasion I recall that I sat up until 6 A . M. listening to Tom philosophize; on another I roomed with him at a convention while he was suffering from tellurium poisoning and its peculiar

form of halitosis. I have never been able t o decide which of these occasions was the greater test of friendship. On the other hand, Tom kindly undertook the t a s k of t e a c h i n g me to play golf, an ordeal from which his own game has never fully recovered. Our closest association was when we cooperated in nursing his pet baby “Ethyl” through her first five hectic yearsand did that baby have growing pains! But to get back t o the beginning, just a week ago I attended a new show entitled “Brother Rat,” in which a rather slow-witted V. M. I. cadet by the name of Townsend tried to impress some of the other boys by saying that he came from Beaver Falls, Pa., and when another cadet indi;ated that he had never heard of it, Townsend assured him that a lot of great men have come from there,” but was very much flattened by the cutting retort, “Oh yeah? Name one.” Only the presence of my wife restrained me from coming t o his aid and naming one, for it was indeed in Beaver Falls, Pa., on May 18, 1889, that our Medalist first saw the light of day-though that expression is rather a euphemism when applied to an industrial city located but a short distance north of Pittsburgh. By a coincidence the same doctor, T. P. Simpson, who brought

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