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1930s Chemistry
Guy Bock

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I have no great knowledge of chemistry. The following
information is selected for being out of date and streamlined for game
purposes. Anyone using this information to make real explosives,
poison, etc. is probably going to get a nasty suprise. Remember what
the typical penalties are in CoC for meddling with things you don't
undestand.

This is a very wide area to cover, but the rulebook seems
to focus on four main areas:

1) Blowing things up
2) Disolving things
3) Poisoning things
4) Analyzing what's left after you've done 1,2, and 3

First, a few notes on Chemistry in the 1930s. There are a few
differences in the periodic table. Sulfur is spelled 'Sulphur';
Niobium (No. 41) is known as Columbium; Astatine (No. 85) is known as
Eka-Iodine; Francium (No. 87) is known as Eka-Cesium; Protactinium
(No. 91) is known as Eka-Tantalum; All elemement from No. 93 on up are
unknown.

Chemists in the 30s did not know about neutrons. In modern chemistry
it is known that each element has a neutron for each proton it
possesses. A neutron has the same mass as a proton, but carries no
charge. To make up for what scientist saw as a discrepancy in weight,
they doubled the number of protons that the element contained, added
yet one more, and then included electrons *as part of the nucleus* to
make the charge come out properly. Electrons that orbited the nucleus
were called 'planetary' electrons to distinguish them from the
electons that were part of the nucleus.

* i.e. reacts violently in chemical reactions.

Explosives are divided into two catagories: rapid burning and
detonating. Rapid buring substances are substances in which a flame
spreads quickly. These substances are used for accelerating
projectiles. Gunpowder is an example. Detonating substances are
substances in which a violent chemical reaction takes place throughout
the mass. Nitroglycerin is a common example.

Any substance that can be made to burn quickly can be made to explode.
Coal gas, hydrogen, automobile gas, alcohol, ether, turpentine or any
vapor can explode when mixed with the right porportions of oxygen.
Most manufactured explosives contain the element oxygen in their
chemical makeup to provide the right porportion, independent of the
environment they are used in.

The most common explosive players will come into contact with will be
dynamite. The main component of dynamite, nitroglycerin, was
discovered in 1846 by an Italian scientist. It is made by treating
glycerin with a mix of nitric and sulphuric acids. It proved too
unstable for blasting purposes untill Alfred Nobell finished his
experiments with the substance in 1866. Dynamite is a mixture of some
absorbent substance impregnated with liquid nitroglycerin. Wood pulp,
sawdust, charcoal, and plaster of paris have been used for making
dynamite. Ordinary dynamite is usually made in the form of eight inch
long sticks, two inches in diameter. They are covered with brown
paper wrappers coated with paraffin to keep out moisture. A small
quanity of dynamite, set on fire, will burn normally, but if the
burning dynamite is subjected to pressure or vibration, it will
explode. Dynamite is usually set off with a detonator or blasting cap.

For game purposes, if a chemist can obtain nitric acid and some
absorbent material that burns easily, he has enough to construct an
explosive.

I don't have the space or intrest to explain how acids work. Here's a
list of common 1930s acids:

Poisons are classed by the way they react on the human body.

1. Corrosive Poisons - act by 'burning' the skin

Examples: bichloride of mercury, carbonic acid, hydrocloric acid,
nitric acid, oxalix acid, suplhuric acid

2. Irritant Poisons - act by causing inflamation. Usually react slowly.

Examples: Arsenic compounds, Copper compounds, Lead compounds,
Phosphorus compounds, Zinc compounds

3. Nerve Poisons - act directly on the nerves. Small amounts can kill very
quickly.

Examples: aconitin, belladona, cocaine, cyanide compounds, heroin,
hydrocyanic acid, opium, purussic acid, strychnine

4. Gas Poisons - act by irritating lungs or by interfering with blood oxygen.

Examples: bromine, carbon monoxide, chlorine, suplhur fumes

I tried to come up with a 'field kit' for chemists, a sort of portable
chem lab for doing general analysis. I decided that any kit small
enough to carry probably would not be specialized enough for the
strange things the players would run into. Just give the players a
ten kilo box to lug around. When they try to examine anything with
it, tell them the tests give ambigious results (roll some dice, if you
really want them to be paranoid) and then suggest they take it to a
proper lab.

1930 Chemistry books

"Chemische Briefe" - by freiherr Justus von Liebig (pub 1878)
"Out of the Test Tube" - by Harry Nicholls Holmes (pub 1934)
"Chemistry and its Mysteries" - by C.R. Gibson (pub 1920)

1930 Chemists

Leo Hendrik Baekeland (b 1863) American chemist who developed a
quick-acting photographic paper.

James Bryant Conant (b 1893) American chemist born in Mass. Proffesor
of organic chemistry 1922-33 at Harvard U.

Irving Langmuir (b 1881) American chemist engaged in research for
General Electric. Developed Lewis-Langmuir theory of atomic
structure. Won Nobel Prize in 1932.

Elmer Verner McCollum (b 1879) American biochemist. Authority on
relation of diet to growth and disease. Proffesor U. of Wisconsin and
John Hopkins U. Frederick Soddy (b 1877) English professor of
inorganic and physical chemistry at Oxford. Explained nature of
radioactive elements. Advanced theory of elements. Won Nobel Prize in
1921

Theodore Svedberg (b 1884) Professor of physical chemistry at U. of
Uppsala. Won Nobel Prize in 1926. Directed research at U. of
Wisconsin 1922-23. Svante August Arrhenius (1859 - 1927) Swedish
chemist and physicist. Director Nobel Institute for Physical
Chemistry. Nobel prize winer 1903. Advocate of theory that the
energy of the world is self-renewing. Author of theory of surface
conditions on Venus.

Sir William Crookes (1832 - 1919) English Chemist and physicist. Studied
electric discharges through rarefied gases. Interested in psychic phenomena.

Wilhelm Ostwald (1853 - 1932) German scientist. Leader in modern
physical chemistry. Won Nobel Prize in 1909.