Cover of 1948 book We Human Chemicals: the Knack of Getting Along with Everybody by Thomas Dreier, showing each person as analogous to an element on the periodic table.

In famous publications, We Human Chemicals: the Knack of Getting Along with Everybody is a 1948, 122-page, book by American writer Thomas Dreier which sets forth the simplified view that "we are all human chemicals and human chemists", discussed in 27 classic human chemistry themed chapters, such as how certain people won't mix like oil and water or how marriage is a matter of human chemistry. [1]

Origin
In his opening section “Genesis of this Book”, Dreier states that his original thesis, that “the business executive is a human chemist” and the extrapolations of this premise, grew out of observations of the inept executive of a Chicago organization who assumed that all kinds of men and women thrown together in an organization, would work together harmoniously without any concern on the part of the executive. Conversely, the people in the said organization worked, according to Dreier, in an atmosphere of confusion, strife, tension, and unhappiness. The answer or solution to this issue came to Dreier shortly thereafter:

“One night the answer came to me like a revelation. I sat down at my typewriter and wrote a brief essay entitled “Human Chemicals”. It was published in a magazine of limited circulation. There were so many requests for it that it was brought out in pamphlet form. In fact, seven editions were printed over a period of years.”

This pamphlet would seem to have first been published in 1910. [2] Dreier states that the expanded book was written due to the urging of his publisher friend Robert R. Updegraff and that the well-known consulting chemist Gustavus Esselen gave suggestions on chemical terms and analogies in the expanded book.

See also
● Human Chemistry (book)
● Human Chemistry (textbook)
● The Human Molecule

References
1. Dreier, Thomas. (1948). We Human Chemicals: the Knack of Getting Along with Everybody. (122-pgs). Updegraff Press.
2. Dreier, Thomas. (1910). Human Chemicals. (27-pgs). Backbone Society.