ÉMILE MONNIN CHAMOT

Émile Monnin Chamot (Figure 28), true to his promise to Professor Behrens, started teaching microchemical analysis immediately upon his return to Cornell.  The first courses consisted of informal lectures, demonstrations, and laboratory practices.  Students were guided by their notes and by mimeographed and typewritten sheets.  Between 1899 and 1902, Chamot wrote about twenty articles on microchemical analysis for the Journal of Applied Microscopy.  These articles, along with the laboratory direction sheets and lecture notes, became the nucleus for Chamot's book, Elementary Chemical Microscopy [Chamot É.M. (1915)], published by Wiley in 1915.  Many copies of this first textbook for American chemists bear the imprint year 1916, because within one year of its appearance, a third thousand had to be printed. Incidentally, in spite of Raspail's introduction of the term "chemical microscopy," Chamot is often credited with having coined the name in about 1914, because he realized that in addition to microchemical analysis, there were physical and physicochemical factors involved in chemical behavior, and then there were also the quantitative methods of Emich and Pregl being developed; these all applied to problems that chemists were called upon to investigate.  In his 1915 Preface, Chamot acknowledges his indebtness to the then late Professor Behrens, and to Simon Henry Gage, Professor Emeritus of Histology and Embryology, also at Cornell, about whom Chamot says, "It is largely due to the spirit of optimism and love for research with which this indefatigable investigator is ever surrounded that the author was originally led to enter the field of applied microscopy when first a student."

click image to enlarge (115K) Figure 28. Émile Monnin Chamot. Portrait in McCrone Research Institute Museum.

America then entered World War 1, and a partly rewritten and enlarged second edition [Chamot, É.M. (1921)], of Chamot's book came out in 1921.  In the Preface to the second edition, Chamot notes how the microscope had come to be regarded as a necessary adjunct to the chemical laboratory, and how it had been applied to problem solving during the war in more new applications than in the preceding quarter of a century.  Here he also announces that a Handbook of Microscopic Qualitative Analysis is in preparation, and that it will include copious photomicrographic illustrations.  Finally, he states his indebtedness to Simon Henry Gage, and to Clyde Walter Mason for helpful suggestions.

É.M. CHAMOT AND C. W. MASON

In 1930, volume 1 of the Handbook of Chemical Microscopy [Chamot, É.M. and C.W. Mason (1930)], by É M. Chamot and C. W. Mason was published by Wiley, with the announcement that Volume 2 was in preparation.  This first volume is devoted to the Principles and Use of Microscopes and Accessories, and Physical Methods for the Study of Chemical Problems.  Volume 2, on Chemical Methods and Inorganic Qualitative Analysis, came out the following year, 1931.  Interestingly, the authors state in their Preface that "In spite of the continued growth which microscopical qualitative analysis has undergone, it is noteworthy that the methods of this branch of chemistry, as taught by Behrens in the early nineties, stand with little need for modification.... Building better than he knew, he chose reagents which are still unexcelled for convenience, rapidity, and versatility."

After eight years of continued progress in chemical microscopy, and classroom observation, a second edition of the Handbook [Chamot, É.M. and C.W. Mason (1938 & 1940)], was deemed necessary.  Accordingly, Volume 1 of the second edition was published in 1938, and Volume 2 in 1940.

Chamot retired in 1938, and died in 1950.  Mason prepared a new (third) edition of Volume 1 only of the Handbook.... and Wiley published it in 1958 [Chamot, É.M. and C.W. Mason (1958)]. There is a Michel-Lévy chart in full color in this volume, and the footnote references number in the thousands.

Volume 2 of the Handbook .... went out of print in 1968, and was reprinted in 1989 by the McCrone Research Institute (Chicago), but is again no longer available.

In the years between 1940 and 1968, the Handbook.... was reprinted a number of times, sometimes in a smaller format, and always on different paper; variations in the paper are as common as in Winchell's Elements of Optical Mineralogy. C.W. Mason again revised Volume 1 only as a fourth edition in 1983 [Mason C.W. (1983)]; Chamot's name was dropped as co-author in this edition.  Mason has since died.

Intriguingly, there exist notes prepared by Chamot for a proposed Volume 3 on the Identification of Organic Acids. The practical microscopist must have the second edition of Volume 2; the reprint is fine. Of Volume 1, my preference is for the third edition [Chamot, É.M. and C.W. Mason (1958)].