Louis Pasteur

10 LOUIS PASTEUR
known a new method of manufacturing gunpowder and studied
the making of iron and steel; Monge explained the art of casting
and boring cannons of brass for land use, and cast-iron cannons
for the navy/*
In the space of a few years, science had become a necessity to
society. Bacon's dictum had come true: knowledge was power.
Thus was born the tradition of mobilizing scientists to perfect
the instrumentalities of war, and the importance of the military
aspects of science has ever since grown in magnitude with each
new conflict. During the Civil War in the United States, Joseph
Henry became the chief adviser to the government on scientific
military inventions, publishing several hundred reports, based on
much experimentation. Out of this
activity arose the National
Academy of Sciences. Such was also the ancestry of the National
Research Council and of the Office of Scientific Research and
Development, organized in the United States during the First
and Second World Wars respectively.
Similar associations of
scientists were created in the other belligerent countries, not only
to devise weapons of offense and defense, but also to adapt the
national economy to shortages of food and other supplies.
The English blockade during the Napoleonic Wars greatly stim-
ulated the development of practical chemistry in France. In order
to foster the search for home products to replace colonial and for-
eign goods, encouragement of all sorts was given to investigators;
technical schools and colleges were established; exhibitions were
promoted. Because France had been cut off from her usual sup-
ply of crude soda, the Paris Academy of Sciences offered a prize
which stimulated Leblanc's discovery of a method to make car-
bonate of soda from salt. This in turn led, somewhat later, to the
enormous development of the sulfuric acid industry in England
and on the Continent.
Just as the absence of cane sugar had encouraged the cultivation
of the sugar beet in the
plains of northern France, it was to
answer a state need that, stimulated by a prize offered by Na-
poleon, Appert invented a method for the preservation of perishable
food. A few decades later, this method was improved by a