Word: latex
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...height of seven feet.* Canny Richard Mortimer examined the flora, reported: "The plant can be grown as easily as a common weed, and raw rubber will drip from it when it is cut. Samples of the plant were sent to a chemist. The report came back: 'pure latex.' Each plant yields between one and two ounces of latex; an acre would yield over two tons. The possibilities are stupendous. The center of the rubber-producing world will be right here in England, and the cost of rubber will be only a fraction of the present price...
...Foamed-rubber latex, familiar stuffing for auto upholstery, now seals airplanes' bomb doors and cabins, cushions flight-control instruments, earphones and helmets. It weatherstrips tanks against sand and water, protects crews from bumps...
Sometimes this reclaimed solid crude is further reduced to a liquid latex. It is kneaded in water with a soapy "dispersing agent" until the rubber molecules lose their attraction for each other and disperse to form an even suspension in the water. From such latexlike dispersions are made heavy, industrial rubber gloves and other dipped articles, as well as rubberized fabrics like raincoats...
...keep restless stomachs constantly occupied, Dr. Winkelstein rigs up a quart-sized can high over each patient's bed, fills it with lukewarm milk to which a level teaspoon of soda has been added. One end of a long, latex tube attached to the bottom of the can is swallowed by the patient. The tube, which is very soft, and scarcely larger than macaroni, is easy to swallow, does not keep the patient from sleeping, can even be used in the day time while he sits in a chair. The milk drips into his stomach constantly, its flow controlled...
...From an unpainted shack near Tampa came J. Andrew Tatro, displaying a "biscuit" of "rubber" produced (said he) in jig-time from a mysterious hybrid of two latex-bearing plants, suitable for Florida cultivation. Only J. Andrew and his son Andrew Orvill know the secret...