Nurses' Association, of which she was the first member. Mrs. Bedford Fenwick has been a member of many medical and nursing congresses and has also contributed many papers to medical journals. She became in 1893 editor of the British Journal of Nursing, and was a prominent member of the Society of Women Journalists.
FERDINAND (1861- ), ex-King of Bulgaria (see 10.269), played a leading part in the negotiations which led to the Balkan Alliance and the Balkan War of 191 2. It was generally believed in Bulgaria that the costly prolongation of the war in Thrace was attributable to his ambition to capture Constantinople, and that it was he who, as commander-in-chief, gave Savov the order to attack the Serbs on June 29 1913. Thus the responsibility for the disastrous second Balkan War rested with him. There is no doubt that it was Ferdinand's policy, carried out by a subser- vient and discredited set of ministers, which brought Bulgaria into the World War on the side of the Central Powers. He ab- dicated in favour of his son Boris on Oct. 4 1918 and retired to Coburg. Queen Eleanor died at Euxinograd Sept. 12 1917 (see BULGARIA: History).
FERRIER, PAUL (1843-1920), French dramatist (see 10.288), died at Nouan-le-Fuzelier Sept. n 1920.
FIBRES (see 10.309). Science and technical industry during the World War were necessarily impressed into war service. "Fibres," animal and vegetable, had an obvious prominence in the actual materiel of warfare, and their most ordinary applications assumed intensified importance. An interesting point arose in Germany and among her allies in the emergency adaptations which were devised under the stress of short supplies of staple raw materials. These restricted supplies directly influenced the production of military explosives; cotton cellulose was supple- mented or replaced by wood cellulose for producing nitro-cellu- lose propellant explosives. The wood cellulose to be used for this purpose was prepared from the " bisulphite " pulps of the paper industry, by hydrolytic treatments under which these crude " celluloses " were purified by the removal of 10 to 15% of their weight of the less stable celluloses. The final product was characterized by a much-increased proportion of a-cellulose (Cross and Bevan), and by structural changes of the fibre; effects which may be comprehensively described as " cottoniz- ing." This modified cellulose has been established in Germany as " Supersulfit," and for paper-making uses it has increased the range of application of wood cellulose in substituting rag celluloses. Restricted supplies of cotton, as of flax or hemp and jute, also affected the textile industries of these countries, and forced the production of twisted paper yams to an industry of large dimensions, the estimated output in the concluding year of the war being 200,000 tons. The applications of these yarns cov- ered a wide range of textile effects, some of which are permanently adopted. But in the main such products are substitutes, with the fundamental defect of the short fibre-length (2-3 mm.) which characterizes the better-prepared pulps of the papermaker.
These developments in any case are a permanent contribution to fibre technology, and have reopened a number of problems in the borderland region between the textile and paper-making industries, which have the common objective of producing a structure in continuous length from discontinuous elements, with the fundamental distinction of dry and wet methods. It is evident that if the control of longer fibres (e.g. 7-15 mm.) on the Fourdrinier machine can be realized, there would result an in- teresting extension of this competition of methods, in which a decisive factor would be the relative cost of production.
Another raw material to claim attention especially under the stress of war conditions was the fibre of the common nettle. The textile potentialities of the Urticaceae have long been recognized and the most conspicuous members of the order, which furnish the Ramie or Rhea fibre, are the basis of established industry. With their characteristics of great length of (bast) fibre they have the defects of extreme variability of dimensions, and require preparation by chemical methods of separation; from the plant, moreover, the yields of fibre on the crop- weight are low. Notwithstanding these defects, which are exaggerated in the case of the nettle, the industrial utilization of the plant has been seriously prosecuted in Austria and Germany, and it appears that, under the condition of an integral working-up of the crop material to salable products, there is a prospect of commercial development. Such treatment of the non-fibrous cellular debris of this crop-plant, as of others, after separation of the primary product in this case the fibre is indicated in recent developments of fermentation processes.
Still dealing with the emergency problems of the war period, the revival of the long-known effects of treating jute fibre with caustic soda (mercerizing) is noted. These effects are expressed in the descriptive term "woollenizing ": the fibre is so modified as to present many points of resemblance to wool. It yields to the "carding" process, and mixes well with wools: mixtures containing up to 60% of the vegetable fibre can be worked up through the sliver and roving stages and finally spun to useful yarns. These were worked on an increasing scale in the Central European countries during the war period.
As a result of the shortage of the staple paper-making raw materials, the European industry was served in part by miscellaneous supplies of material. In England the reeds of the East Anglian rivers and other districts were brought into requisition, and experimental quantities of numerous fibrous materials were worked up into paper and boards.
The restriction in supplies of food-stuffs in Germany and Austria-Hungary brought forth a crop of substitutes (Ersatz-stofe). In the agricultural section attention was directed to the food value of the fibrous components of vegetable material celluloses and ligno-celluloses generally classed as indigestible, and cattle foods were adopted containing considerable proportions of these more resistant elements of plant structures.
The literature on this subject has more than the passing interest of the episode, and attention may be directed to the following: " Digestibility of Birch Wood," Rubner, Chem. Ztg. 1915, 39, 86; " Wood Cellulose as Fodder," Schwalbe, Z. Angew. Chem. 1918, 31, 347, and Scurti and Morbelli, Chem. Zentr. 1919, 90, 1112, and on " Cereal Straws after various Chemical Treatments," Godden, Jour. Agr. Soc. 1920, 10, 437; Fingerling, Z. Angew. Chem. 1918, 31, 347; Pringsheim, ibid. 1919, 32, 249.
These researches are obviously related to the more specific investigations of the destructive resolution of the celluloses, fibrous and cellular, to ultimate products of low molecular weight. The developments of Power Spirits Ltd. and H. Langwell have established intensive bacterial fermentations even of the resistant cellulose which have the external characteristics of the familiar operations of the brewer and distiller in the production of alcohol. Langwell's investigations have therefore brought these transformations within such control as to become industrial operations, and as the main products are alcohol and acetic acid there is the obvious economic basis for commercial development.
It is clear that such developments are only indirectly involved in the subject-matter of this article, since the fibrous celluloses and ligno-celluloses subserve as such their special adaptations to human requirements. It is possible to apply such processes to the utilization of the non-fibrous rejecta of such crop plants as flax, hemp, sisal, manila and phormium, to the production, e.g. of acetic acid, which would make for the economic working-up of material, and the cover- ing of costs of production of the staple fibres yielded by these plants.
The direct contributions of these investigations to organic science are obvious and far-reaching: they extend and define certain con- stitutional relationships of the celluloses, as chemical individuals, of first importance; and elucidate many aspects of the plant world in its primary functions as well as its correlations of interdependence with the animal world.
The influence of war conditions likewise brought about the extension of the applications of the Kapok " fibre " (seed hair) in the composition of marine life-saving appliances. These depend primarily on the low density of a mass of this fibre, even when much compressed, as in the stuffing or filling of the familiar life-saving jackets which now replace the cork-lined appliances of the 19th century. The flotation powers of an enclosed mass of Kapok is measured in terms of the volume of unit weight (1 gramme) when forced by hand compression into a regular cylinder. This volume is 10-12 cub. cm., and is a multiple of the volume of an equal weight of cork substance of highest quality. The fibre has the further advantage of being compressible in mass whereas cork is relatively rigid. A jacket can therefore be constructed and filled with the fibre in such a way as to carry
