The cellulose
molecule having three hydroxyl (--OH) groups, can take up one, two or
three nitrate groups (--ONO_{2}). The higher nitrates are known as
guncotton and form the basis of modern dynamite and smokeless powder.
The lower nitrates, known as pyroxylin, are less explosive, although
still very inflammable. All these nitrates are, like the original
cellulose, insoluble in water, but unlike the original cellulose,
soluble in a mixture of ether and alcohol. The solution is called
collodion and is now in common use to spread a new skin over a wound.
The great war might be traced back to Nobel's cut finger. Alfred Nobel
was a Swedish chemist--and a pacifist. One day while working in the
laboratory he cut his finger, as chemists are apt to do, and, again as
chemists are apt to do, he dissolved some guncotton in ether-alcohol and
swabbed it on the wound. At this point, however, his conduct diverges
from the ordinary, for instead of standing idle, impatiently waving his
hand in the air to dry the film as most people, including chemists, are
apt to do, he put his mind on it and it occurred to him that this sticky
stuff, slowly hardening to an elastic mass, might be just the thing he
was hunting as an absorbent and solidifier of nitroglycerin.
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