Early on, Kodak and other companies that made film stock knew that nitrate film was flammable and potentially dangerous. For a number of (mostly business-related) reasons, the full transition to safety film wasn’t made until the early 1950s. It wasn’t long before archivists and other people who handled film noticed that the acetate base was deteriorating and off-gassing acetic acid, a component of vinegar. Harold Brown, an archivist at the British Film Institute’s National Film Archive, coined the term “vinegar syndrome” to describe not just the smell, but the accompanying catastrophic deterioration that occurs when the film base breaks down. The three main enemies of acetate film are heat, moisture, and acid. Any combination of the three will accelerate a film’s demise.