Foreword to the Third Edition

Reason authored a book on the history of science, The Road to Modern Science,25 which was first published in 1936. A second edition of the book appeared in 1940 (reprinted four times) and, indicating an amazing longevity, a third, revised edition in 1959. In the Foreword, she commented The primary object in writing this book was to present the story of scientific discovery in a form which would appeal to intelligent boys and girls. She added that she did not approve of the great scientist approach to the history of science rather, her book covered "... the broad view of scientific discovery. 25... 

It is both a pleasure and a privilege to have been invited to write the Foreword to a book of such importance as Dr. Comyns dictionary of named processes in the chemical industry. For many years, chemists have had access to books with titles like Named Reactions in Organic Chemistry. Here the busy student or researcher can discover immediately the nature of the Wurtz reaction, the Cannizzaro reaction, and such curiosities as the Hell-Volhard-Zelinsky reaction. Until the first edition of the present book appeared in 1993, no such literary assistance was available to the multitudes who labored in the chemical industry. Six years later, a second edition took into account the many novelties that had appeared in that short period. Now a third edition is expanded still further, particularly by inclusion of many biological processes that industry now uses. 

Third, I would like to thank Dr. Ramon Barnes, Director of the Research Institute for Analytical Chemistry in Amherst, MA and the driving force behind the Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry, for the kind and complimentary words he wrote in the Foreword of both the first and second editions of my book. 

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