Conclusion

As you can see, molecules have had an enormous impact on the course of human events.  Even the slightest chemical change or property can have a major effect on the world.  Many of the stories in the book reflect this idea, which I feel is also epitomized in the old English nursery rhyme:

For the want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For the want of a horse the rider was lost.
For the want of a rider the battle was lost.
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horse-shoe nail.

I hope you've enjoyed learning about the stories in Napoleon's Buttons: 17 Molecules That Changed History!

Molecules Versus Malaria

The parasite malaria that once infected human beings around the globe, now only affects certain regions, mostly Africa, thanks to a handful of molecules that have either fought malaria itself, or have attacked it at its source: the mosquito.  The four species of malaria that infect humans are Plasmodium vivax, P. falciparum, P. malariae, and P. ovale.  These four species of malaria would square up with three molecules that would ultimately eliminate this parasite from most of the world.  The first of these molecules is quinine, an alkaloid found in the bark of Cinchona (genus) trees.  First prescribed by native Americans to visiting Europeans to combat fever, Chinchona bark was soon used as a remedy for malaria in Europe.  Quinine, also known as Jesuit's powder (it was Jesuit missionaries who introduced the bark to Europe), proved to be very effective in fighting malaria, and one of its derivatives, chloroquine, was an even greater success, and soon replaced its parent molecule.  The second molecule, DDT, which was explained in the previous chapter, was used as an insecticide against the anopheles mosquito, which spread malaria from person to person by sucking their blood.  Used extensively and liberally, DDT had completely eliminated malaria in Europe by 1975, and in many other regions of the world, except in Africa.  However, Africans do have their own natural defense against malaria:

Hemoglobin, found in red blood cells, transports oxygen around the body.  In 25% of Africans however, sickle cell anemia is present and most with this disease die before adulthood.  About 50% of Africans are carriers of the disease, but surprisingly, being a carrier is the best case scenario.  Though they are not fully affected by the anemia, the anemic hemoglobin works to their advantage as it provides immunity from malaria.  Those who have normal hemoglobin are subject to malaria so it is mostly carriers of sickle cell anemia who are able to pass on their genes to the next generation.  However, due to carriers being heterozygous, the ratio of anemics to carriers to normal hemoglobin should remain relatively the same, unless of course something is done to upset this balance.  Until then however, anemic hemoglobin serves as a protection against malaria along with quinine and formally DDT, the three of which have saved millions of lives.

Chlorocarbon Compounds

Since Ancient times, ice had been used to keep things cool, until around the mid-nineteenth century, when refrigerants began to go into use.  Refrigeration is the process by which a refrigerant undergoes an evaporaration-compression cycle, absorbing the heat within a system.  In 1877, a cargo of frozen beef was successfully shipped aboard the S.S. Paraguay from Argentina to France, using the refrigeration process for the first time ever.  This marked a milestone in the refrigeration industry, and also opened up new opportunities for trade, allowing goods that needed to be kept frozen or chilled to be transported over longer distances.  The primary refrigerants used back in the 1800s were ether, ammonia, methyl chloride, and sulfur dioxide, and though they were good refrigerants, they either decomposed, were fire hazards, were poisonous, or smelled terrible.  By the early 20th century, compounds called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) replaced the older, less efficient refrigerants, and were seemingly perfect for the job.  But CFCs are carbon-based molecules that include chlorine, flourine, and occasionally hydrogen atoms.  It is the chlorine in these that was eventually found to cause major problems with the ozone layer, and CFCs were soon after banned from use in most countries.  The ozone layer is made of gaseous oxygen atoms, oxygen molecules (O2), and ozone molecules (O3) that are constantly reacting with one another, but keep a balance between these reactions.  The chlorine atoms that arise from the CFCs also react with the ozone layer, but upset the natural balance as they break down ozone molecules but do not reform them.  When there are disturbances within the ozone layer, harmful rays from the Sun that are ussually kept out by the layer, enter the atmosphere and cause considerable damage.  Today, other chlorine-containing compounds that are not harmful to the environment are used as refrigerants and in other systems.

Chlorocarbons have also been used in a variety of other settings, such as in the fields as a pesticide, and in the operating room as anesthetics.  Molecules such as dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, or DDT, have been used extensively as pesticides, but later went out of use as it killed helpful insects as well as harmful ones, and also caused human health issues.  Another chlorocarbon, hexachlorophene, was used in many germicide products in the 1950s, but also followed in the steps of DDT as it was soon found to be toxic.  As an anesthetic, chlorocarbons also seemed to be ideal for the job, but they were also eventually found to have harmful effects on the body as well.  Though most chlorocarbons have been proven to be very harmful to the human body and to the environment, they have also shaped the course of history, having first applied refrigeration in the real world and introducing man to the use of anesthetics among other things.

Salt

Essential to maintaining life, salt has been the source of wars, urban growth, social and political systems, the rise of global trade, monopolies, industrial advances, and the migration of populations.  Today, salt is used freely in our diets and on icy roads among other things, as it is both cheap and widely available.  For almost all of recorded history however, it has been just the opposite, with salt being a precious commodity that was needed by everyone.  Because of this, populations migrated to areas where salt could be easily extracted, setting up small communities there.  These communities prospered, eventually growing into towns and even cities.  Some city-states, such as Venice, acquired a monopoly on the salt trade in their region, and often went to war with other countries to maintain their monopoly.  One particularly salt-rich area was the Sahara desert, and the salt from here was traded with various nations by Berber traders via camel caravans.  Just south of the Sahara, the city of Timbuktu began to prosper from the salt trade and became a major trading post, not to mention a center of Islamic expansion, by the fourteenth century.  In Europe, much of this Saharan salt was used to fish for marine life in remote bodies of water, using the salt to preserve the catch until brought back to shore.

Throughout the Ages, salt has been taxed, often excessively, in almost every civilized nation.  Both the Greeks and Romans imposed a salt tax, and this practice continued into the Middle Ages and well into modern history.  For example, in France the gabelle, an infamous, oppresive, and deplored salt tax, began in 1259 as a moderate tariff on salt to maintain a standing army.  However, it grew into a hefty tax that also required French citizens to purchase a weekly amount of salt set by the king.  In 1790, during the French Revolution, the gabelle was abolished, but brought back by Napoleon in 1805, and remained in affect until after World War II.  Britain also had imposed a salt tax on its people and its colonies, causing some resentment in places like India, which peacefully and successfully revolted from British rule under Mahatma Gandhi in the 1930s.  In the American Revolution, the British blocked off salt imports to the colonies, putting a great hardship on the colonists, as salt was still a necessity.  In the American Civil War, Union forces captuered Saltville, Virginia in 1864, which proved to be a major blow to southern civilian morale and may have even led to the ultimate defeat of the Confederate Army.  Clearly, salt has had a major effect on the course of human events, having shaped the world we now live in.

Click here to see a video on the formation of NaCl (just the first part of the video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yjge1WdCFPs

Oleic Acid

Olive oil, the prized trading commodity of Ancient Greece, has played a significant role in shaping human history.  Olive oil had brought a great wealth to Ancient Greece, as it was essentially the sole object of export by its people, which allowed it to expand its reach and influence and ultimately foster the roots of modern-day Western civilization.  The political culture of classical Greece- its concepts of democracy and self-government, philosophy, logic and rational inquiry, scientific and mathematical investigation, education, and the arts- has been reflected in the many civilized Western cultures of today.  However, it may have also been olive oil that led to its ultimate fall.  Because olive oil was so important to the Greeks, olive cultivation took precedence to the major agricultural products needed for an empire to sustain itself.  Because of this, along with internal strife, the collapse of religious traditions, and outside attacks, olive oil is associated with the decline of classical Greece, as well as its upbringing.

Oleic acid, the main component of olive oil, is an eighteen carbon, monounsaturated fatty acid, that has also had an enormous affect on the development of human hygiene.  After the collapse of the Greek and Roman empires, the use of olive oil as a body wash was largely abandoned, and would not be revived until the eighth century in France and Spain, where new soaps began to be manufactured.  These new castile soaps as they were called, contained olive oil, and therefore oleic acid.  Soap is a jumble of fatty acids that form a micelle around a grease particle, and are then washed away by water.  The fatty acids form this micelle because the tails of these molecules are repelled by water and attracted to other nonpolar compounds, such as grease, and the heads of the acids remain on the outside, as they are polar and are therefore attracted to the surrounding water.  The revival of the art of soap-making has brought modern society to the point it is at today, in which we cleanse our bodies daily and maintain other standards of personal hygiene.  The oleic acid molecule has clearly had a great affect on human history, having helped shape the political culture of Western civilization, and though perhaps not as dramatic but none-the-less important, introduced the use of body wash.

Morphine, Nicotine, and Caffeine

The addictive molecules of morphine from the opium poppy, nicotine in tobacco, and caffeine in tea, coffee, and cocoa, have been sought out and prized for millennia, bringing both benefits and dangers to all mankind.  They have caused wars, spurred trade, generated fortunes, and enslaved millions among other things.  These three came together unexpectedly at one intersection in history that would help shape the modern world before our very eyes.

The use of the opium poppy, originally used as a medicinal herb in the eastern Mediterranean region, spread quickly throughout Europe and Asia, and was soon a foreign commodity in China.  Though the opium trade was banned in most countries, including China, it was in high demand by its people.  Also in high demand here was tobacco, which the Chinese would mix with the opium and smoke.  What China had plenty of, however, was tea.  The British Empire, unwilling to pay in silver for the tea leaves that they so valued, entered the illegal opium business and began trading with Chinese buyers.  Angered, the Chinese government destroyed a year's supply of opium on British ships unloading in Canton's harbor, prompting the British to declare war.  Now known as the First Opium War (1839-1842), the conflict would result in a Chinese defeat that required them to pay large amounts in reparations, open five ports to trade, and to cede Hong Kong to the British.  Another Chinese defeat twenty years later in the Second Opium War further broke down Chinese isolation, sending the nation into a period of upheaval and change that culminated in the Revolution of 1911.

Today, morphine and its related compounds are the most effective painkillers known, but a stronger analgesic effect is also correlated with a stronger addiction.  For example, codeine (found in opium in small quantities) is less addictive but is also a less effective narcotic.  Diacetylmorphine, also known as heroin, is an extremely powerful analgesic, but is far more addictive than morphine.  Heroin is banned in most countries today, but is still illegally manufactured and sold on the black market.  The nicotine molecule, found in the tobacco plant genus Nicotiana, has also affected man and his history, and has been smoked around the world since its introduction, despite it being outlawed in many countries earlier on, especially in Asia.  Tobacco is a crop that requires labor-intensive work, so plantation owners resorted to the use of slaves to cultivate it.  Because of this, nicotine joins glucose, cellulose, and indigo as another molecule that promoted slavery in the New World.  Caffeine, especially in tea, plays a major role in shaping human history as well.  Aside from causing the First Opium War, the human desire for this addictive molecule may have also helped fuel the American Revolution.  Tea imported to the colonies by Britain was heavily taxed, which angered many colonists, who, on December 16th, 1773, raided a British cargo ship and threw barrels of tea into the harbor.  The event became known as the Boston Tea Party and further strained what relationship Britain and her colonies had left with each other, which eventually culminated in revolution.  The impact all three of these addictive molecules had on human history was enormous, having above all else helped China come out of isolation to become one of the world's greatest superpowers, and to even help fuel a revolution that an even greater world power would emerge from.

Molecules of Witchcraft

From the mid-1300s to the late 18th century, hundreds of thousands of Europeans were burned at the stake, hanged, or tortured as witches by their own people.  Though the accusers were of a variety of sorts and backgrounds, it was mostly elderly or widowed women that had been accused of witchcraft.  Alleged witches were easily convicted, as little evidence was required for one to be found guilty, and occasionally the accused would admit to witchery, even before feeling necessitated to do so by the torture methods used by the courts to elicit confessions.  The driving force behind both the discrimination and as to why some falsely confessed, may be explained by a group of molecules called alkaloids (plant compounds that have one or more nitrogen atoms).  As part of folklore culture, herbs were often used as remedies for sickness and for other uses, one being to achieve a high.  Women in the Middle Ages lived a hard life, so to get high off of herbs every so often was a great relief.  The method used to obtain the high was to rub greases and ointments on their skin, which would lead to a night of hallucinations, returning them to a normal state in the morning.  The use of such ointments as mandrake, belladonna, and henbane extracts (all alkaloids), may have led them to believe that they were actually witches, having thought to have experienced acts of witchcraft such as flying on a broomstick and dancing with demons.  This explains the false confessions as well as why it was mostly women who were accused.

Another group of alkaloid molecules may have even been responsible for the witch-hunts themselves.  Compounds such as ergotamine, ergovine, and LSD, all derivatives of the lysergic acid molecule, are known to cause ergotism, whose symptoms include convulsions, seizures, diarrhea, lethergy, manic behavior, and hallucinations among other things.  As ergotism had struck many towns seemingly at random, many believed that their town was bewitched if some of the townsfolk experienced ergot poisoning, though we now know that ergotism is caused by fungus growth on crops in damp conditions.  The symptoms of the ergot poisoning itself, such as the manic behavior and the hallucinations, may have led the accusers to believe that they had witnessed their neighbor engage in witchcraft, or that they were under a curse of some sort.  Though the influence of alkaloids during the witch-hunts is just a hypothesis, this group of molecules did have the potential to cause the mass hysteria that led to the deaths of countless accused witches, which would forever alter the course of human history in Europe and abroad.

Women accused of being witches were sometimes burned at the stake if not hanged or drowned.