Chemistry as a profession and as an Aid to other Professions

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A person who selects chemistry as profession does not thereby place narrow limitation onwhat he will do with his life. He still has many roads open to him. He may become a lecture and at the same time work to discover something new to bring deeper understanding into the science; he may be a research man working either with inorganic substances or with organic ones, with metals or with drugs; he may help either engineers in the control of great industrial processes, to develop new ones or collaborate with medical workers in the control and treatment of diseases. Even if he selects a profession other than chemistry he may find himself using his chemical knowledge not only in his everyday work but also in overcoming unexpected problems.

The improvements that chemistry has made in metals and alloys, other structural materials such as plastics and other materials such as oils which are used in the machines of our mechanical civilization have been so numerous that they cannot be listed. One may be mentioned as an example – the discovery of a special oils and lubricants which does not get thin and useless in hot weather or thick and sluggish in freezing weather, but which retains a constant viscosity independent of temperature.

Chemistry has always been of great value to medicine. Last century we have seen the discovery of sulfa drugs and penicillin which have largely overcome the danger of the infectious diseases. The degenerative diseases like cancer, heart diseases and AIDS – are now the most important causes of death and present an imposing challenge tomedical research worker. Our knowledge of the structure of the cells and molecules which make up the human body is not yet great enough to provide an understanding of what these degenerative diseases really are and to suggest effective methods of attack on them. They are organic chemists who make a real contribution to biochemistry thus developing more effective methods of analyses and curing as well as medicinal means of treatment.

But chemistry, physics and biology have been developing so rapidly in recent years, and the methods of investigation have been becoming so powerful, that we may look forward confidently to great progress in the future in the understanding and control of these diseases and to the further alleviation of human suffering. There is need for able, creative and imaginative chemists in the attack on this problem as well as for medically trained men and technical engineers with a sound knowledge and appreciation of chemistry.

9. Find the pairs of antonyms in the list and remember them:

thin, hot, help, retain, violent, organic, fluid, sluggish, interfere, quiet, inorganic, solid, liquid, freezing, thick, lose.

Дата добавления: 2014-11-07