Gough, John

This case study is based on original work by Richard Mitchell and John Gough of Pfizer Limited. The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Paul Benson (Pfizer), Keith Brown (Pfizer), Hugh Langston (Pfizer), and Eric Wells (Pfizer) in the preparation of this revision. 

Gough, T.A. The Analysis of Drugs of Abuse. John Wiley, Chichester, 1991. 

Other contemporaries, Henry Victor Regnault and E. Simon, described polymers of vinyl chloride, vinylidene chloride, styrene and other polymers in 1938 and 1939. However, the most significant contribution to polymer science in the early part of the nineteenth century was made by a blind scientist named John Gough. 

In a letter to Dr. Holmes in 1802, John Gough described results of three experiments which formed the basis for the modern theory of rubber elasticity (5) ... 

John Gough, who at the age of three lost his sight after an attack of small pox, was bom in the English li e District in 1757. He was tiie son of a shearer-dyer who helped John to overcome his disability by teaching him to develop his touch and tongue in order to visualize his surroundings. He was also encouraged to conduct experiments in his father s dye house. 

John s stretching vs temperature experiments were shown to be reversible i.e., a stretched rubber band contracted when heated and elongated when cooled. When thermometers which were as sensitive as John Gough s lips became available in 1859, Joule quantified Gough s experiments. John also showed that a stretched rubber band lost much of its elasticity when placed in cold water but this property was recovered when the water was heated. 

In the Excursions, Wadsworth wrote the following about John Gough ... 

At Kendal, Dalton was befriended by John Gough. Dalton learned much from this remarkable man, who although blind was an expert in Latin, Greek, mathematics and science. It was Gough who encouraged Dalton to start keeping a meteorological journal. His records commenced on 24 March 1787, and were made every day until the day before he died 57 years later. 

It is the constraints on the freedom of the chain segments, imposed by the cross-links, which are the cause of the elasticity. Early in the nineteenth century an English chemist, John Gough, performed a simple and illuminating experiment. Apply, he said, a strip of rubber to your lips, stretch it sharply, and you will feel a sensation of warmth. Rubber emits heat when stretched, and conversely will contract, and not expand like most other materials, when heated. So, since, as the First Law of Thermodynamics... 

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