Day 12 - Lloyd A. Hall - Sterile and Preserved

Quinn Chapel AME Church

I haven't covered many industrial chemists. There is a good reason for this - in the old days, when these geniuses were busy creating wild compounds, we didn't really understand how they interacted with the human body.

So much of industrial chemistry has turned out to be really bad for us. Still, there is lots of good that comes from their work.

Today we meet Lloyd August Hall. (1894 - 1971) He was born in Aurora, IL.

His grandmother ended up in Illinois at the age of sixteen after being smuggled out of the South on the Underground Railroad. His grandfather founded the Quinn Chaple AME church in 1837. 

I am pleased to say that Lloyd and I share an alma mater! I too went to Northwestern University!

Go NU

Lloyd got a BS in Chemistry. Then he went off to the University of Chicago for a Masters in Chemistry.

After he graduated, he had a phone interview with Western Electric. They hired him on the spot. When he turned up for work they discovered he was black and unhired him on the spot.

What this man could have done to our electrical systems. Sigh. Alas, it was not to be. No matter, it turned out to be a blessing for the future of food preservation and a cleaner, safer world.

Lloyd found work as a chemist in the industrial food industry.

Over the course of his long career, he was granted over 100 patents nationally and internationally for processes primarily in the food preservation of meats.

Two of the discoveries he made revolutionized several different industries.

He created a chemical process to process meat that turned out to kill microbes but proved to be a carcinogen. I saw nothing that said they marketed it to people, but the company did realize they could not put it on meat. So, they marketed to the medical industry to sterilize their instruments. They still use it today.

Sterile!

The second patent that made a huge difference was the discovery of an Ethylene Oxide gas process that was used to sterilize spices.

Up until Dr. Hall tested them, people believed that spices were a sterile, natural preservative. Through experimentation, he discovered that they were full of yeast, bacteria, spores, molds. and fungus. He developed a process using ethylene gas in a vacuum chamber to sterilize the spices. This process worked so well, it was not only adopted by the entire food industry, it is still used in the sterilization of medicines and cosmetics.

So, Dr. Lloyd August Hall -

A chemist who gave us clean food, drugs, medicines, and surgical equipment.

Not a bad life's work!

Celebrate Black History!