Re: tasting chemicals

["Scott D. Kniffin" <Scott.D.Kniffin.1@gsfc.nasa.gov>]

Lester,
Personally, I despise people who go about judging the past with current
standards.  It's simply a matter of knowledge, information and evolution.
We shouldn't be looking back and saying "how stupid!", we should be looking
back and saying "look how much we learned in so short a time."  

Yet again, more rambling,

Scott Kniffin

mailto:Scott.D.Kniffin.1@gsfc.nasa.gov
RSO, Unisys Corp. @ Lanham, MD
CHO, Radiation Effects Facility, GSFC, NASA, Greenbelt, MD

The opinions expressed here are my own.  They do not necessarily represent
the views of Unisys Corporation or NASA.  This information has not been
reviewed by my employer or supervisor.  

At 12:29 06/01/98 -0500, you wrote:
>I guess I've reached the age where one dislikes admitting to
retrospecively 'stupid' things.  But I seem to recall in my chemistry
classes of my youth that when one had positive knowledge of a chemical stew
that it was not unusual to 'taste' or even sniff vapors for identification
purposes.  I even remember (horror of horrors) doing mouth pipetting.
While our current safety standards render such practices today as 'stupid'
is it appropriate to describe accepted practices of more than 30 yrs ago in
that manner?
>
<snip>
Lester Slaback, Jr.