That is to say, organic as far as pre-dating plastics and what-not, to my knowledge?
I base this upon seeing ads for New-Skin in some 1920s issues of The Literary Digest (which, incidentally, contain a few other entertaining and often amusing ads [“patent researchers”, etc.]) and being slightly confused, since I was under the impression that New-Skin was some new miracle invention on par with Dermabond (polymer-based, right?) and such.
New skin is made of pain. At least, that’s the primary ingredient. After that, the bottle in front of me says:
Alcohol 6.7%
Pyroxylin Solution (some sort of platic mixture)
Oil of Cloves (pretty much what it sounds like… yes organic)
8-Hydroxyquinoline… well you can read about it here I can’t think of a way to sum that up.
All of those substances are organic, in the sense that they contain carbon bonded to another element (and are not carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide). If you mean ‘natural’ or ‘derived from natural products’ (as opposed to being derived from petroleum, etc.), then obviously alcohol and oil of cloves are ‘natural’. 8-hydroxyquinoline is probably derived from petroleum. Pyroxylin is derived from cellulose, a natural fiber from plants. Cellulose can be treated with nitric acid (with a trace of sulfuric acid) to make nitrated cellulose, also known as guncotton, a highly flammable material used as an explosive and also formerly used in cinematic and photographic film. Pyroxylin is partially nitrated cellulose, so it’s up to you whether you want to consider that ‘natural’.