Doesn't a t-test work here?

Hello,
I am a biologist attempting to publish in a Scientific Journal. I
used t-tests to analyze some of my data and one of the reviewers made
a comment about this being inappropriate. This same reviewer made
other comments that led me to question whether or not he really
understood what was going on, but I wanted to get some input on
whether or not a t-test would be appropriate in this situation. My
statistics background is limited, I did take a class about 4 years ago
in statistics, but since I didn't need the information right away, the
majority of it left my brain almost immediately.
Reviewer's exact quote:
"A T-test or Anova are really for pairwise comparisons and cannot be
used for comparisons of multiple samples such as this. "

My experimental set up:
Leaves of a plant were treated with 1
of 9 different compounds, or one compound that served as a control.
Each of these compounds produced a certain amount of Green fluorescent
light when ultraviolet light was shown onto the leaves. This level of
light could be quantitatively measured as photons of light emitted per
second per square centimeter. Each compound was placed onto 10
different leaves and measurements from each of these treatments were
taken. The 10 measurements for each compound was compared to the 10
control measurements to determine if the compound increased
fluorescent light emitted at a statistically significant level as
compared to the control. I thought that to do this a T-test or
possibly an Anova was an appropriate way to make this analysis. Again
I wanted to compare Compound X with Control, Compound Y with control,
Compound Z with control, and so on. I do not care how Compound X
compares with Compound Y.

Am I correct here? If so how would you respond to the reviewer?
Thank you in advance
Jason
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Doesnt a t-test work here?
    ... "A T-test or Anova are really for pairwise comparisons and cannot be ... Leaves of a plant were treated with 1 ... of 9 different compounds, or one compound that served as a control. ...
    (sci.stat.edu)
  • Re: Doesnt a t-test work here?
    ... "A T-test or Anova are really for pairwise comparisons and cannot be ... of 9 different compounds, or one compound that served as a control. ... The 10 measurements for each compound was compared to the 10 ...
    (sci.stat.edu)
  • Re: Doesnt a t-test work here?
    ... Leaves of a plant were treated with 1 ... of 9 different compounds, or one compound that served as a control. ... The 10 measurements for each compound was compared to the 10 ...
    (sci.stat.edu)