PREFACE

THE teaching of Qualitative Organic Analysis is gradually
receiving recognition as an important factor in the training of
the chemist. In 1905; the subject was taught in only two or
three universities; ten years later courses were offered in from
fifteen to twenty of the leading schools in this country; and in
1918 the subject was prescribed for all colleges undertaking the
training of chemists under the supervision of the United States
Government. Only the armistice prevented the institution of
this sweeping innovation in chemical curricula.
Qualitative Organic Analysis has not been taught generally
because of the assumption on the part of chemists that the multi-
plicity of organic compounds excludes the possibility of a sys-
tematic procedure. This is the opinion of those who have not
taught the subject; those who have had experience in presenting
the work both in the classroom and the laboratory realize that
Qualitative Organic Analysis is capable of logical and systematic
treatment and that it is of fundamental importance in the elemen-
tary training of the chemist in the organic field.
The course here outlined is essentially that offered by the
writer at the University of Illinois in 1920. The basis for its
claim to systematization is outlined in Chapters I and II. The
most radical individual departure from other analytical schemes
consists in the subdivision of organic compounds into seven
solubility groups and the application of this classification to a
systematic procedure.
The chemist to whom most credit is due for the development
of organic qualitative analysis is Professor S. P. Mulliken. The
appearance of his exhaustive reference book on the " Identifica-
tion of Pure Organic Compounds/' Vol. I, in 1905 is obviously
the beginning of this line of work. The authors of foreign texts