09/13/2026
Did you know?
EASTMAN makes LIQUID for Egyptian MUMMIES ! Bait and switch.. Tennessee Eastman Corporation was organized, soon after World War 1, as a source of supply for certain chemicals used in film-manufacture at Rochester New York, who needed wood alcohol (methanol). That requires lots of wood. So the company bought forty thousand acres of timber land or timber rights in four states, and built a 20-mile logging railroad out of Kingsport which established timber operations on near and remote mountainsides. Eastman built a modern sawmill, and set about selling high-grade hardwood lumber. Why?
Establishment of a lumber industry was only for the purpose of getting rid of a by-product. In a lumbering operation, a large percentage of every tree felled is ordinarily considered waste because limbs and tops, small or defective scrub trees, and the “slabs” and the sides and ends of boards cut in a sawmill can’t be sold as lumber.
But these leftovers were a useful raw material for Tennessee Eastman’s wood alcohol.
Here it is :
"The so-called “chemical wood” is loaded into steel-slatted “buggies,” which run on railroad tracks into air-tight chambers. There, by the application of heat, the wood is carbonized into charcoal, and gases are driven off, to condense into a dark fluid called “pyroligneous acid”—the liquid used by the Egyptians to preserve their mummies." !!! ⬅️
So mummy fluid eventually would become chemically pure methanol after all byproducts were pulled from it.
George Eastman needed methanol as a vital chemical solvent and precursor to produce cellulose acetate, the base material for safety film. Keyword : FILM
During World War I, Kodak's supply chain for essential imported chemicals - including methanol, acetic acid, and acetone - was severely disrupted. To secure a reliable, independent supply for film production, Eastman founded the Tennessee Eastman Corporation in Kingsport, Tennessee, in 1920 to manufacture methanol and other wood-distillation byproducts locally.
Home movies, safety film for x-rays, vacation photography, Hollywood industry, home movies.. all needed what the mummies had in order to produce the images of life that would forever document the world.
Tree wood = pyroligneous acid (mummy fluid) = methanol = byproduct called acetate anhydride + glacial acetic acid = treated cotton = cellulose acetate = film of all kinds, globally.. the Kodak Moment 📸 🎬 🎞 🎥 😎
P.S. All those mummy movies? Well,.. In mummification, pyroligneous acid (also known as wood vinegar) was used as a natural preservative and antibacterial agent. Produced during the thermal decomposition of wood, its primary active component - acetic acid - helped dry out tissues, inhibit bacterial decay, and break down soft tissue when injected into body cavities during embalming. Yummy.
P.S.S. That smell of fresh film is not the smell of a yummy mummy, though certain mummies might have a similar smell. Ewwww.
The unique smell of vintage Kodak film (a delight to all photographers) is caused by acetic acid - the main component of household vinegar - rather than pyroligneous acid.
"As safety film made from cellulose acetate degrades over time, it undergoes a process called deacetylation that releases acetic acid v***r, a phenomenon known in archiving as "vinegar syndrome".
Fresh film, gelatin coatings, and older cellulose nitrate film also carried faint chemical or nitric acid odors, but the distinct, sharp vinegar smell from stored film canisters is purely acetic acid off-gassing." g*I
That's the story of Eastman Kodak films and the long ago Egyptian Mummies who never had the benefit of a camera full of fresh film that was possible because of a place called Kingsport Tennessee in a far off land across the ocean.
And yes, film is making a major resurgence again 🙂 click and photo labs are cool again. Probably cooler than mummy tombs.
