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The spectrophotometer, particularly the visible spectrophotometer, has had more impact on modern chemical analysis than most people will ever care to know. Before visible spectrophotometry chemical testing was done by selective separations and absolute determinations all based on gravimetric and volumetric techniques now referred to as classical chemical analysis.

These classical methods require high analytical skill and are very accurate in the hands of skilled operators, but are also very slow and cannot be readily adapted for the rapid analysis of large numbers of samples. The first scheme for the rapid analysis of silicate rocks was described in the US Geologic Survey Circular 165 (Shapiro and Brannock, 1952). This "scheme" outlays the rapid chemical determinations of major constituents of silicate rocks by colorimetric methods without extensive preliminary separations. Of interest to note, it was this USGS circular that made first mention of the 10 to 20 sample analytical batch.

As the demand for chemical testing grew the desire to process more samples per day also grew. The rapid silicate scheme devised by Shapiro and Brannock may have been quick enough for the USGS at the time, but it was not suitable for the large numbers of clinical tests or for the large numbers of samples being processed by commercial laboratories. In 1957 a huge breakthrough in laboratory automation was made by Skeggs when he introduced the "autoanalyzer". This first commercially successful automated analyzer relied almost exclusively on colorimetric tests.

Advantages of automation is realized by their ability to operate over long periods of time on large sample batches maintaining the same precision and accuracy throughout the entire time. Human operators cannot do this. A human may be able to produce superior results to an automated system but cannot avoid exhaustion and the mistakes that result because of it.

Automated analyzers are also able to reproduce timing and mixing between steps exactly every time without variation. Some automated analyzers are able to make measurements of up to 300 or more tests per hour.

What is commonly forgotten, however, is that an analyzer is not a human. It does not, nor cannot, have the human intuition required to make judgments on the suitability of tests performed for the sample matrices they are performed in. Once tests are devised for a given sample matrix they are extremely reproducible and produce reliable results allowing day - to - day operation to be by almost unskilled operators. But there must be a skilled analyst present to diagnose and validate the ability of the rapid method to detect and accurately determine the analyte in every given sample matrix. It is virtually impossible, and very incorrect, to assume that any rapid method developed for a particular matrix will produce an accurate result in every other matrix. There can be no "push button analysis"!