Page 5 - A HANDBOOK OF ORGANIC ANALYSIS QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE

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INTRODUCTION

ORGANIC analysis, qualitative and quantitative, has of recent
years acquired increasing importance in the training of the
chemist. And this with reason, for the examination of un-
known organic compounds has, perhaps, an even greater
educational value than has that of inorganic substances.
The examination of inorganic ions too often tends to degen-
erate into a series of arbitrary tests,-memorised, and applied
without much consideration of their theoretical bearing. In
organic analysis conditions are too varying to permit of this;
no hard and fast rules can be laid down, and each observed
reaction and characteristic must be brought into line if the
definite constitution of the substance under examination is
to be ascertained.
At the present time hardly any books exist which deal with
the systematic testing of organic substances. There are many
that describe the preparation of organic substances, give
quantitative methods, and deal with special analysis of
distinct classes of compounds. But the book that would
enable the chemist to find out qualitatively the nature of the
multitudinous carbon derivatives met with in ordinary work
in an organic laboratory,-that book is wanted.
Every year sees the domain of organic chemistry growing
in a manner hrdly to be paralleled in any other science: as
a result, the number of new substances being discovered makes
it increasingly difficult to write a practical book that will
deal with even the more common of them. Another difficulty
is that the methods employed must necessarily be quite
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