ABSTRACT
Synthetic Materials UNTIL about too years ago a great many of man's everyday needs were supplied from plant or animal resources and there was no substitute for them. For his clothes he used wool from sheep, cotton from the cotton plant, linen from flax and his silk was spun for him by the silkworm. For dyes he used indigo from a plant, madder from a root, cochineal from crushed insects and purple from shellfish. Quinine, one of his most important medicines, used especially against malaria, came from the bark of the cinchona tree, and oil of wintergreen, used as a remedy for rheumatism, came from the bark of the willow. When he came to need rubber for bicycle and motor-car tyres he made it from the milk-like sap that comes from trees on the plantations in Malaya.
