1. History

The first studies and industrial exploitation of natural rubber date back to the return from South America of the French scientist Charles Marie de La Condamine, who produced the first scientific description of this material in the mid-18th century. Following his journey, which lasted 10 years from 1735 to 1745, he recounts in his report to the Académie des Sciences how Amazonian Indians collect a milky liquor, latex, by cutting the bark of certain trees, the best-known and most widely exploited of which is the Hevea brasiliensis. Bleeding is still the process used to harvest latex. From this milky substance, which hardens by coagulation in the heat and slowly blackens in the air, the Indians make torches that burn perfectly without a wick; to protect themselves from the rain, they waterproof cloth by coating it with latex; and they fashion various utilitarian objects by molding them in...