[6/7] Of course, unless you have a medium or a necromancer at hand, it's hard to say whether Chaptal was pursuing economic interests alone or was convinced by the prevailing opinion on acid gases. It was probably a bit of both. But even he could not prevent the increasing complaints against factories. His successor as Minister of the Interior was therefore forced to commission a report to analyse the harmfulness and countermeasures of such factories. Chaptal was able to use his influence in the Académie des sciences, most of whose members were already in favour of the disinfection theory, to declare chemical factories harmless and combined this judgement with a warning. If the expansion of factories were hindered by laws or regulations, nobody would invest in the industry any more. One might think that sounds somewhat familiar...