The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7308 p94
17 July 2004

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Fairy godmothers and the decline of family values more
Murder will out — in volatile emissions from decaying bodies more
Without better school laboratories there may be no more chemists more

Fairy godmothers and the decline of family values

After finishing my comments on fairy-tales (PJ, 22 May, p648), I took another look at the classic work by Edwin Sidney Hartland, ‘The science of fairy tales — an enquiry into fairy mythology’ (1891). This is a long and detailed investigation into the popular traditions associated with the fairy superstitions mainly of the Celtic and Teutonic peoples, but straying into the folklore of more distant cultures. Hartland comments: “By means of a story the savage philosopher accounts for his own existence and that of all the phenomena which surround him. With a story the mothers of the wildest tribes awe their little ones into silence, or rouse them into delight. And the weary hunters beguile the long silence of a desert night with the mirth and wonders of a tale.”

Obviously story-telling is one of the calming and civilising measures that we humans have adopted to enable us to bring up our children to hold to a moral code. The more we look at fairy-tales the more we realise that they present individuals of probity and moral worth but, even more significantly, others are guided in their conduct by the deadly sins of violence, hatred, jealousy, avarice and arrogance. Step-sisters stop at nothing to destroy their own kin; powerful princes cannot allow any infringements of their right to dictate to others; the strong rob the weak. When they think it necessary, the evildoers have recourse to wicked fairies or dragons to carry out their plans. At the other extreme, those who are subjected to ill-treatment appeal to fairy godmothers to rescue them. And as Shelley remarks: “Each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul.” In addition, there are wild animals to lend a hand when necessary.

The notion that an individual threatened by evil and selfish people may have recourse to others who are capable and generous and will rush to assist the victim of injustice, is a valuable one in the consciousness of a young human. All the more reason, then, for parents to read fairy-tales in the home. Through such a medium children will grow up knowing that the world is full of unscrupulous and greedy people, but that alongside these are the generous and helpful ones who are at hand when the need calls.

One of the shortcomings of society in these days of haste and tunnel vision is that children are frequently neglected when parents imagine themselves too busy making a living to spend time in the home to read stories. Of course, some adjustment of the competitive atmosphere of the workplace is needed so that more time and attention can be paid to bringing up children. Forward, fairy godmothers!

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Murder will out — in volatile emissions from decaying bodies

In the June issue of Chemistry World there is a report of a new technique that is expected to prove of service in the investigation of murders. It involves studying the chemistry of decomposition of dead bodies and the detection of compounds released into the soil and air in the process.

Bart Smedts of the chemistry department at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels has been analysing soil and vapour samples taken from burials of human and animal remains at various stages of decomposition. The usual gases involved include sulphur dioxide, methane, benzene derivatives and long-chain hydrocarbons.

Particular attention is being paid to constituents that trigger the reactions of sniffer-dogs, which are being trained to detect human remains. Compositions that have been specially made to provoke reactions in dogs have been found faulty, and the success rate when detection is attempted may therefore be disappointing.

Samples were collected from five crime sites in Belgium, and several types of animal considered most likely to be contaminants of clandestine graves were experimentally buried and left to decompose. They included rats, rabbits, muskrats, chickens, pigs and dogs. At intervals soil samples were removed, and heated to produce vapours for analysis. Site vapour samples were taken by means of inserted hollow probes and trapping the gases on solid sorbents. Analysis was by thermal desorption and gas chromatography techniques.

The results indicated what should be sought in a buried body that retains soft tissue and showed how to differentiate this from the products of skeletal decay. Once identified, the key compounds could be used for training sniffer-dogs, which are able to detect decaying soft tissues though not necessarily skeletal remnants.

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Without better school laboratories there may be no more chemists

Simon Campbell, the president-elect of the Royal Society of Chemistry, has recently proposed to the government that an investment of some £1.4bn will be required, in England alone, to improve conditions in school laboratories. More will be necessary elsewhere in the UK to raise the standard to a satisfactory level.

Making laboratories safer for students to work in, said Dr Campbell, is essential to progress and, in a sophisticated industrial economy such as ours, it would not be unduly ambitious to aim at upgrading the whole science learning environment to meet modern expectations. Young students need to be convinced that science, and chemistry in particular, is vital to the health and wealth of the nation, and offers a career well worth pursuing.

It has been found in practice that, wherever wise investment has led to upgrading the laboratory facilities of an institution, more students have opted to study science. However, a report of the laboratories in maintained secondary schools in England has indicated that only 35 per cent earn a good or excellent grading. Of the others, 41 per cent were judged uninspiring and 25 per cent either unsafe or inadequate for science teaching.

It is obvious that no student of any age should be required to work in an unsatisfactory or unsafe chemistry laboratory, nor should a science teacher be expected to work in an environment that is anything other than professionally well equipped for the task. If school laboratories are unacceptably designed and equipped, young students are likely to be discouraged from furthering their science studies. In the long term, this tendency is calculated to weaken the prosperity of the UK and result in the choice of alternative career patterns, to the detriment of scientific progress.

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