For instance there is a liquid
known as isoprene (C_{5}H_{8}). This on heating or standing turns into a
gum, that is nothing less than rubber, which is some multiple of
C_{5}H_{8}.
For another instance there is formaldehyde, an acrid smelling gas, used
as a disinfectant. This has the simplest possible formula for a
carbohydrate, CH_{2}O. But in the leaf of a plant this molecule
multiplies itself by six and turns into a sweet solid glucose
(C_{6}H_{12}O_{6}), or with the loss of water into starch
(C_{6}H_{10}O_{5}) or cellulose (C_{6}H_{10}O_{5}).
But formaldehyde is so insatiate that it not only combines with itself
but seizes upon other substances, particularly those having an
acquisitive nature like its own. Such a substance is carbolic acid
(phenol) which, as we all know, is used as a disinfectant like
formaldehyde because it, too, has the power of attacking decomposable
organic matter. Now Prof. Adolf von Baeyer discovered in 1872 that when
phenol and formaldehyde were brought into contact they seized upon one
another and formed a combine of unusual tenacity, that is, a resin.
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