SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Chain Reaction, a podcast from the American Chemical Society, where we link chemistry's past to its future. I'm your host, Margo Wool.

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And I'm Shane Hanlon.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hey Shane.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Hello.

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As promised, you're back. We're back.

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I am back. I know you can't get rid of me.

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For a bonus episode, we've wrapped up the miniseries. We got to listen to presidents interview various people that they were jazzed to talk about. We got to listen to Chemical Kim, which I always love. And we were thinking about what would be a cool bonus episode that could help celebrate ACS's 150th. And an idea popped into my head, which was that there's been some really cool presidents of ACS. Like presidents only really stick around for a year. So there's been a lot of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

I mean, we are celebrating, yeah, we're celebrating many years as an organization. This is a 150th. So yeah, I'm sure there's uh maybe not exactly that number, but probably a good amount to choose from.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

A lot, a lot. And there's been some really cool presidents. So I thought that we could chat about them. I picked a president, you picked a president, and I'm excited to tell you about the person that I chose because he's super cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Genuinely curious. I I the little bit that I know about uh the history of ACS, I should know more since working here, of course, but always happy to figure out kind of what happened in the past and who these people were.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm just gonna get to it. I wanted to talk about this guy called Harvey Wiley.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So he was the ACS president in 1893 to 1894, a time unfathomable. Oops, how do you say that word? Unfathomable. Nope, can't do it. A time that's really hard for me to imagine. And while he was president, membership doubled. So he was like going gangbusters, getting members.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Do you have any idea what those numbers were?

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Okay, so I just looked it up. Uh so the membership went from 400 to a thousand.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Oh. There's there is something about going from three digits to four digits. It does mentally make a big I mean that's not that's not nothing, though.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

No.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

So that's pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah. Um okay, so he was born in 1844 in Indiana, and his parents were really cool. They were conductors on the Underground Railroad.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

All right.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

And he actually served in the Civil War for the Union.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

And I'm sorry, it's just like hearing 1890 something is wild, but like the the perspective of, oh yeah, and also served in the Civil War is even kind of wilder to think about.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yep. Civil War. And he became a doctor and a chemist. Very good combo. And at some point he became really concerned with like what is in fertilizers and then also what is in food. Like, hey, maybe we should like pay attention to what is around surrounding the things that we ingest. Um, first he was appointed as a chemist for the state of Indiana, and he was analyzing the contents of fertilizers. And he really quickly after that got appointed as the chief chemist for the USDA. He started looking into the potential of sorghum to be used for sugar, which obviously is like not much of a thing. So I guess it didn't go that well, but that's okay. He was just looking into it. He was like, could we use this to make sugar? We need a lot of sugar. But at the time, he was also starting to analyze foods, like what's inside of foods like milk, butter, honey. And he was finding some very uh not so good things in these products.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

So for instance, he was finding things like formaldehyde in the milk and meat. Um, people actually used to use that as a way to preserve them for longer, but obviously um not ideal.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, I uh I used I would use formaldehyde to literally embalm like the biologist by training, right? And frogs, turtles, things like so we would do experiments, and literally formaldehyde was one of our embalming agents to preserve things that were already dead. So putting in your body, not great, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

No, probably not good. Um, anyway, so he starts putting out bulletins about these things to let people know, like, okay, there are these things in food. And he's studying the effects of other preservatives too, and other additives. So, like, for instance, borax was a thing that people used to put in food a lot. So he kind of had this idea, he was like, well, we should start to really like test if these things are okay for humans. Because this was like kind of newer stuff that was being put into food at the time, you know, like we're starting to become this industrialized society, we're starting to make these foods that kind of didn't exist before, we're trying to get them further away from the farms to new people. So, anyways, he's like, this is in 1902. He comes up with this idea to test these on healthy men, young men. And later on, these people who were part of this testing would be known as the poison squad.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Oh, that's catchy marketing.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Yeah, yeah. And he's like, okay, let's see like how, you know, like let's feed them borax and see what happens. Let's feed them this and like, you know, how are they doing? Are they doing okay? And the answer a lot of times was no. Yeah. They're not doing great, which I hope these men were well compensated.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Right. Yeah. Early experimentation is just wild to think about.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, totally. Um, so he he's finding this out and he starts to advocate for regulating food. And he starts working with people like Heinz of ketchup fame.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Ketchup fame.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Of ketchup fame.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Wait, I just I'm gonna have to derail you for a second. Is there another I have very strong feelings on this. Is there another ketchup other than Heinz in your eyes?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Hmm. No, you know what? I don't think so. I'm totally with you on this.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Heinz or bust. I have a very strong Pittsburgh connection that'll come up, so I just need to like needed to ping you on that.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

All right, continue. Heinz or bust. Um he's teaming up with this woman called Fanny Farmer, who was this well-known cook and author. And and actually around that time, the this movement was really bolstered by this book you may have heard called The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

And so finally, actually, in 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed by Theodore Roosevelt. And sometimes it's known as the Wiley Act, because of the role that Harvey Wiley played in getting this passed and getting like the awareness out there that, like, hey, these things are in your food and they're bad. And this act banned certain food additives that were found to be dangerous. Also, it ensured that it basically said like you have to list the ingredients that you're putting in food and they have to be accurate.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

All right.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Which is wild that this like wasn't there before then.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

But I know that's like I'm just thinking like you're saying these things, and to me, it's just all these things are duh, right? But this is over a hundred years ago, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:28

So not necessarily Yeah, it had to happen at some point. Yeah. So um he actually became the founding father of the Association of Official Analytical Chemists, which I'm sure is pretty important if you're an analytical chemist.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

I would imagine so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Yeah. So he's he's been working at the USDA, but he decides to resign in 1912. And actually part of that is because he's actually getting a lot of pushback in regulating that law. And so I I think he like he maybe gets a little discouraged.

unknown 7:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

But that's okay because he takes this cool new job. He becomes the director of the Bureau of Foods, Sanitation, and Health at the magazine Good Housekeeping. So the one you're thinking of, like the it still exists today.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Did they like have a research arm or something? Like what was they did? That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

They were pretty cool. Like they're like, hey, these things have what you actually think in them and they work. And so like he was the one who's like, okay, let's analyze you know, this cleaner or whatever product.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

And like it's almost like consumer reports now or something like that. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Yeah, these these magazines that my dad would get, and now I get them as well because I'm in a color world I am and a homeowner and all those things. Yeah. But no, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah. And so he would like to write these. Oh, so he oh, he had his own seal of approval that we would put on products that he had tested.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

I put it with a literal stamp or something.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

I would love that if it was an actual stamp.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

And then on each product, you had to put the chain reaction seal of approval, just like put your put your own stamp on things.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yes. I would love that. Um and he would write these articles that would essentially like tell people like, hey, this is false advertising yet. This article about fake diet products that like didn't really do anything. Um, supplements. He warned against a lot of supplements and didn't have what they said in them. He also was warning about the health hazards of tobacco as early as 1927. I mean, I just like I really admire this guy who, like, before I'm sure he's getting so much pushback, but he's like, here are all the things we need to really watch out for.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah. And just even the scope of his career, right? He was president right in the middle of a lot of this stuff. I mean, you're saying that the warning of tobacco in the mid-1920s. I mean, he was president in the 1890s. So it's really impressive that he had this really long career and a lot of kind of what he achieved and a lot of the really noteworthy things. ACS was was almost the beginning of it, right? Or this his end of the ACS.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Yeah, it was early in his career. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah. Really fascinating, a trailblazer. And really, we have him to thank for the beginnings of our food being regulated.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Oh, thank you for thank you for bringing him to me.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, I I really enjoyed that. I am hopeful that you enjoy the person I'm bringing to you as much as I enjoyed learning about Harvey.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Okay, Shane. Well, yeah, what who do you who are you bringing to me?

SPEAKER_01 10:38

I have for you Helen M. Free.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Uh Helen was the ACS president from 92 to 93, but she was born in 1923 in Pittsburgh.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

And I I that's why I was asking about signs. Uh I and I'm from the Pittsburgh adjacent area, but the 1920s in Pittsburgh is, I mean, it is it is the what you imagine from an industrial place. This is gray, it is smog, it is the steel, like Pittsburgh's a steel city.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

And so I I just have to imagine kind of being born into a city like that that's really thriving from an industrial perspective, but not necessarily the uh nicest place to live from an environmental perspective. And so, born in 1923, uh, her mom actually died when she was six of the flu. And so it's another thing. You think about early 1900s or even before, I mean, things we think are pretty yeah standard nowadays. Like, I mean, flus can be really bad, but yeah, people still die of them, but yeah, not as many. Exactly. So, from from those early days in in Pittsburgh, uh went to college for English and Latin, actually. But because at the time, so born in the 20s, in the college, probably in the early 40s, so many men were drafted into the war. She was encouraged to go into science, and she actually liked chemistry the best. So she went into chemistry.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Oh, that's awesome. I I mean, okay, war sucks. War's really bad.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

But one thing it did do for women is really help them get into careers they otherwise would not have been encouraged to be a part of.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Oh, of course. Yes. It's it's it's crummy that such a terrible thing had to have this quote unquote good outcome, but that is one thing which would have been for a different reason. But of course, it's good that there were these opportunities that probably wouldn't have otherwise been created at that time. Yeah. An interesting kind of tippet or snippet about her going into chemistry. So supposedly her land professor said that he could not understand why, quote, this girl wants to give up the marvelous world of mythology to work in a smelly old lab.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Yeah, it could be hard to understand. I get that.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

I don't disagree with that being a scientist. Uh, I mean, I gotta say, I but but yes, it is funny. It's it's the what do people value more? What do people think is uh a more kind of noble pursuit? And so from getting that degree, she got a job doing vitamin quality control for the company that actually makes Alka Seltzer.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Oh, pop up, wait it dropped out fizz, pop up fizz, yeah, flop flop fizz.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

I can hear it though, I can and I can see the ads. I remember the commercials.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

I'm sure it was a pretty big company at the time.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Oh, I'm positive, right? And probably these days, frankly, owned by one of the big conglomerates. Uh but still a really big deal. And from that work, shifted to working on clinical testing methods with Alfred Free, who she married.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Ah, yes, that makes sense. Exactly. Her last name.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yes, yeah. And from there, on almost everything after that moment from her meeting and getting married, they worked on almost everything together. So they're really this uh power couple. I was gonna say I was like, that's kind of one of the original power couples, just in a little bit of a different way.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

One of the more notable developments that they worked on was new testing methods for diabetes. So they started out trying to refine a urinalysis test for glucose called Clinitest. Uh at the time, it relied on a copper reduction and a color change. It was a good start, but it wasn't specific to glucose. It could just detect any sugars versus glucose in particular.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Uh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

But from there, they developed the first of its kind glucose test done with urine, clini sticks. And eventually they made it into a dipstick with a double enzymatic reaction, glucose oxidase, and peroxidase. And and actually it was named uh the this discovery was named a National Historic Chemical Landmark by ACS in 2010. Super big deal, really important discovery.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, I mean, because obviously for diabetes, I mean, you need to know how your glucose is doing to understand when you need to take insulin essentially. Exactly, exactly. You're also your glucose can get too low if you have too much insulin. So it's that must have been like a very important breakthrough.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, the the regulation is incredibly important. And from this, they were able to develop dextrose strips for testing blood glucose, so be able to figure out exactly from blood instead of urine, yeah. Exactly. And they also developed a test for detecting ketones in urine, and that was used all the way up into 2018 in terms of some more recent developments. So, yeah, this is really lasting science and some really fundamental discoveries. Other discoveries, so developed a test for detecting bilirubin. This is an indicator for liver dysfunction. That is still used today.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Uh it inducted uh Helen was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2000.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

I wonder where that is. I would go there.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Do we think it's a real place though? Like I guess don't know. I genuinely don't know.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Thinking of like the rock and roll hall of fame.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

I mean, inventors hall of fame, that's gotta be a physical location. We'll we'll look that up. We'll if it is, we'll make a field trip and maybe do a uh a road show pod. I mean, I volunteered myself to uh to hang out with y'all, but this is just this is how I get myself in there.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

It's uh Shane and I are going on this road trip.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

So um and she also received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2010.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Oh is that one of those is that one of those ones where like the president comes and puts a medal on you?

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Certainly is. And so she was uh awarded by President Obama, who was president at the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Oh, yeah, I'm gonna look up a picture.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Oh no, it's it's it's amazing, yeah. And in addition to all of the discoveries and all the fantastic work that she did, she was a real champion for science education and outreach.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Which we care about a lot too.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Well, I mean, that's like what we're doing here, right? In some ways. And so because of that, ACS created an award in her honor, the Helen M. Free Award in public outreach. And it's an annual award. Uh it's uh it's the Chemical Kim won it one year. Who did?

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Chemical Kim.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Oh, of course. That makes so much sense. We're just pulling it all together. And yeah, if folks are interested in this, if they're if they do this type of work, the cycle is usually end of the calendar year, early calendar year every year. So I encourage folks to to look into that. But yes, just such a storied career, such an impressive person. So I hope that other folks really enjoyed learning about her as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Totally. That wraps up this episode. So thank you, Shane.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Thank you very much for having me. It was a delight, and I hope to uh to do it again sometime.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

All right. Bye.

unknown 17:49

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Always hard to wrap things up.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

I know.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

This was Chain Reaction, a podcast by the American Chemical Society. Our executive producer is Sam Jones. Our producer is me, Margot Wall. This miniseries was also produced by Shane Hanlon in partnership with Brand Lab. Production help from Michael David and Matt Radcliffe. Theme song by D. Peter Schmidt.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

The funny okay, I've been to the National Adventures Hall of Fame before.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Oh, wait, what? You're like holding it, you're like, I don't know if it's a real place or not.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

It's in Alexandria. Okay, it's in Alexandria. It's down by the um the mint or something, but it's really small. But yeah, I like I I totally forgot. I just Googled it and I looked and I looked at this picture. I was like, oh, I've been there before. That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

That would not be much of a road trip, I must say. It's a very sad road trip.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

It's not.