Explosives replace malware as the scariest thing a USB stick may hide

How I came to make the stuff is a story in and of itself. My father—a mechanical engineer with no special expertise in chemistry—had been in the Navy in WWII and a colleague had given him a somewhat water damaged disheveled-looking chemistry textbook that had been 'rescued' from a damaged warship. Probably the ship's doctor or pharmacist grabbed the book as he left the ship as clearly it was an important possession (and in my opinion, it still is).

My father gave me the book when I was about 12 and in so doing he briefly outlined the book's history and how it came into his possession but at the time I didn't take much notice—an oversight I'm now forever sorry about (as a kid one doesn't usually pay much attention to such things). Looking back, I suppose my father gave me that background as the book had had an interesting history and he had to explain the reason for the acquired saltwater damage. The first 20 or so pages which includes the table of contents had been waterlogged and so too had its index. When I received the book salt rings/stains were obvious on these pages and they were beginning to disintegrate although they were still perfectly legible back then, nevertheless the body of the text was perfectly intact.

I still have the book and I'm looking at it now. It's showing its age, the index has now disintegrated to powder and the table of contents is only just legible but the body/text is still complete and fully legible.

Now to the interesting stuff, its title is A Text-Book of Organic Chemistry† - "by the late Dr Julius Schmidt - English Edition by H. Gordon Rule, PhD (Munich), DSc Edinburgh. Fourth Edition 1943". [≈900 pages.] Even at the age of 12, its German connections and that Rule's PhD was Munich—and that the book had been rescued from an Allied warship during the War wasn't lost on me. In hindsight, one can understand why someone would have taken the effort to rescue the book, in 1943 it would have been brand new and likely very difficult to replace at that stage of the War. (Moreover, it was clearly a very expensive hardback.)

This is a wonderful book albeit now dated, Schmidt's writing and organization and Rule's clear and succinct translation that's devoid of any unnecessary jargon made it the ideal book for this budding propeller-head. That said, the textbook is no slouch, the first chapter deals with analytical methods: Qualitative Analysis of Organic Compounds and by page 13 we find a heading titled Molecular Structure and Isomerism. At random, page 37 brings forth Resolution of Racemic Compounds, and by page 40 we have Conditions for Enantiomorphism. And only 860 or so pages to go—you get the picture.

Now, you can imagine my excitement at the age of 14/15 when I read in depth Chapter XII - Polyhydric Alcohols, p242, and especially the section later in the chapter on Trihydric Alcohols, Glycerol and Nitroglycerine - glycerol trinitrate. My excitement was 'dynamite'—sorry, that just had to out itself. On p251 there's chapter & verse so to speak including the words "The reaction proceeds best at 20° to 25° and the temperature must not be allowed to rise above 30°", —an instruction which a little later I followed strictly to the letter. Now, with an invitation like that, how could I possibly resist? Some things just have to be done. Don't they?

As I said in a HN post some while ago, I was very careful and measured my reagents out by eyedropper (with the exception of the neutralizing sodium carbonate) and it all 'precipitated' out in lovely oil-like rings in the test-tube just like the textbook said it would. Eureka!

The section on fulminates was also enlightening and descriptive but I heeded the warnings, especially so the dangers of the Ag variety, and avoided temptation although for a while I toyed with the idea of doing picric acid but I couldn't do that in secret (in the timespan of one school lunchtime).

Incidentally, in the chapter on Cynogen Compounds there's a section on their use in ore extraction, Au, etc. One paragraph still brings chills to my spine even now as it did when I first read it as a teenager. It opens thus: "Owing to the recent demands for potassium cyanide for these purposes...," the sentence then proceeds to describe the quick, efficient large-scale production of said chemical. Whilst its stated use is acceptable, every time I read those words I can't help but think it's likely the method those dastardly bastards at IG Farben used to make the stuff. (BTW, I know the effects of HCN fumes after nearly suffocating myself whilst bleaching photo negatives, I staggered out of my makeshift darkroom—our sealed up lightproof bathroom—and collapsed on the hallway floor.)

(It's interesting to reread some of my comments penciled in the margins years ago. I note sarcastically on the synthesis of citric acid involving the multi stage treatment of dichloroacetone with both HCN and HCl and the intermediate products with KCN "that the final product had better be pretty pure if it's to be used in food production". I've also just read my penciled comments in the chapter on the 'The Strychnos Alkaloids'. Back then before Woodward's synthesis of strychnine in 1954, it was the 'gold standard' problem child to understand let alone synthesize. The text goes into the then current thinking (albeit briefly), which is fascinating to read in hindsight. It shows how they were circling and closing in on its structure but nowhere close enough—similar in ways to the ideas about the benzene ring before Kekulé's remarkable insight. Incidentally, that first-class son-of-a-bitch molecule brings back horrible memories, when I was about nine some lowdown bastard poisoned my beloved dog with the stuff—watching his death throes—writhing and convulsing in agony—is something I'll never forget.)

Sorry for the digression. One aspect that keeps me coming back to Schmidt's text is that unlike modern [general] chemistry texts that usually only outline chemical processes from a theoretical viewpoint, its author(s) don't mind delving into actual procedures and processes which makes it useful for experimenters. And its coverage of topics is wide-ranging, there's even a section on thio-esters including mustard gas, and surprisingly for 1943, also one on deuterium compounds.

To say this textbook was formative in my appreciation of chemistry would be a gross understatement.

___

† The title of Schmidt's original 1926 German edition is 'Lehrbuch der Organischen Chemie'.

___

Edit: the textbook was reviewed in the June 1943 edition of Nature.

Also, if anyone knows if or where there's a PDF copy of the text then I'd like to know as I'd like to reconstruct my lost index. Wishful thinking perhaps, as thanks to outrageously long copyright laws, the book is still in copyright (Schmidt died in 1933 and Rule in March 1945).