The facts of science, indeed, were to Mrs. Richards more than mere uncorrelated facts. They are potential agencies of service, and their chief value consists in their enabling us to control our environment in such wise as to secure the maximum of physical well being. Hence her constant insistence on personal cleanliness, on the cleanliness of food, of the house we live in, and, above all, of the kitchen. Hence, also, her preaching, in season and out of season, on the necessity of pure air, pure water and abundance of vitalizing sunshine.
We cannot, then, wonder that sanitary chemistry eventually became the life work of Mrs. Richards, and that, when the course of sanitary engineering was inaugurated in the Institute of Technology—the first course of its kind in the world—she became an important agent in its development and contributed immensely to its popularity and prestige.
She held the position of instructor of sanitary chemistry in the institute for twenty-seven years. During this time she trained a large number of young men in her chosen specialty, and these, after graduating, engaged in similar work in various parts of the New and the Old World.
The branch of sanitary chemistry to which Mrs. Richards devoted most attention was air, water and sewage analysis. In this she was a recognized expert, and her advice and services were sought in all parts of the country. During the last three years of her life she acted, according to her own testimony, as general sanitary adviser to no fewer than two score corporations and schools. In addition to this she was also during this brief period consulted on the subject of foods by nearly two hundred educational and other institutions.
What, however, constituted the greatest contribution of Mrs. Richards to the public health was the part she took in the great sanitary survey of the waters of the State of Massachusetts. During this long and laborious investigation she analyzed more than forty thousand samples of water. These analyses exhibited the condition of the water from all parts of the state during all seasons of the year and were of the greatest value in solving a number of important problems in state sanitation.
But notwithstanding the drafts made on her time and energy by her classwork in the laboratory and her occupation as sanitary engineer for scores of public and private institutions, she still found leisure to engage in many important movements which had in view the public health and the betterment of sanitary conditions in city and country. It is safe to say that no one ever put her knowledge of chemical science to more practical use or made it more perfectly subserve the public weal than did Mrs. Richards. To spread among the masses a knowledge of the principles of sanitation, to make them realize how indispensable to health are pure food, pure water, pure air and life-giving sunshine was her great mission in life, and in this she displayed an energy and a tireless zeal which were an inspiration to all with whom she came into contact.
This indefatigable woman, it is proper to record here, might have distinguished herself as a discoverer in chemical science had she elected to devote her life to original research rather than to utilizing the knowledge already available for the welfare of her fellows. Thus, after a careful analysis of the rare mineral samarskite, she found an insoluble residue which led her to believe might contain unknown elements. This view she repeatedly expressed to her co-workers in the laboratory. But she was unwilling to take from what she regarded more important work the time necessary for making investigations which might have given her undying fame as a discoverer. For not long afterward this insoluble residue, in the hands of two French chemists, yielded the exceedingly rare elements, samarium and gadolinium.
Another chemist of a less altruistic nature than Mrs. Richards would not have resisted the temptation to achieve distinction in the domain of original research. But where there was so much suffering to be relieved and so much ignorance to be removed regarding the most fundamental principles of sanitation, this philanthropic woman preferred to put to practical use what she called "the considerable body of useful knowledge now lying on our shelves."
Her duty, as she conceived it, is well indicated in the following paragraph, taken from a thoughtful discussion by her of the subject of home economics a short time before her death in 1911. "The sanitary research worker in laboratory and field," she declares, "has gone nearly to the limit of his value. He will soon be smothered in his own work, if no one takes it. Meanwhile children die by the thousands; contagious diseases take toll of hundreds; back alleys remain foul and the streets are unswept; school-houses are unwashed and danger lurks in the drinking cups and about the towels. Dust is stirred up each morning with the feather duster to greet the warm, moist noses and throats of the children. To the watchful expert it seems like the old cities dancing and making merry on the eve of a volcanic outbreak."[159]
From the day in 1873 when Mrs. Richards received from the Institute of Technology the degree of Bachelor of Science—a degree which made her not only the first woman graduate of this institution, but also the first graduate in the United States of a strictly scientific seat of learning—the number of women who have devoted themselves to chemical pursuits is legion. They are now found in every civilized country in both hemispheres and their number is daily increasing. They are everywhere doing excellent work as teachers in classrooms and laboratories and holding their own with men as chemical experts in manufacturing establishments and government institutions. Many of them have done original work of a high order, and distinguished themselves by their valuable contributions to contemporary chemical literature. Space, however, precludes more than a general reference to their achievements, for the names only of those who have done meritorious work in chemistry would make a very long list.