SUMMER MEETING. 65 



bud, and gives an elaborate recipe for producing blue roses, by putting 

 a brilliant blue pigment under the pellicle that covers the roots, bind- 

 ing up the wound in oil, and then watering with indigo water. 



The extremely double roses of our day have been made by con- 

 stant culture, enriching the roots, and supplying artificial conditions 

 favorable to growth. The stamens are — many of them — by these pro- 

 cesses converted into petals. Sometimes by examining the heart of 

 double roses a petal will be found half stamen, only half converted. 



The rose played a very important part in the pharmacopoeia of the 

 past. Oil of roses, conserves of roses, preparations from the leaves 

 and from rose-galls were used as specifics for headaches, nerve troubles, 

 tumors, indigestions, and even hydrophobia — from which comes the 

 name dog-rose. One author, Hermann, says that this flower will cure 

 ■ all known maladies, and "all the pharmacopoeia should limit itself to 

 the rose." They were used in embalming the dead as well as toward 

 the preservation of the living. 



Eose-water is spoken of by ancient writers, bat it is not the same 

 thing which we call by that name, for until alembics were introduced 

 in the eighth century distillation was unknown. In 1128, when Saladin 

 reconquered Jerusalem, he would not enter the mosque of the temple, 

 which the Christians had in the mean time been using for worship, till 

 it had been thoroughly purified by washing it with rose-water. This 

 required 500 camel loads of the fragrant liquid. The same thing was 

 done when St. Sophia was taken from the Christians, before it could 

 be made fit for Moslem worship. 



The rose-water of modern finger bowls has its prototype in past 

 usage, for in an account of expenditures for a dinner held at the uni- 

 versity of Oxford in 1570, the item is introduced, " for rose-water to 

 wash afore dinnere and after dinnere, iijs ixd/" A bottle of rose-water 

 was sent as a Xew Year's gift to Bloody Mary in 1556, showing it to be 

 rare at that time in England; and in fact we know that roses were not 

 common in England before the seventeenth century. 



The best-known product of roses today is perhaps the attar, of 

 which we now have so many fair imitations at very low prices. * It has 

 always been considered of great value, at times the pure attar being 

 worth eight times its weight in gold. Many authors have j^elieved that 

 this perfume was known to the ancients. They have indeed quoted 

 Homer to show that it was known in his day, especially that passage 

 in the " Iliad " which says that Venus preserved the body of Hector, 

 after his death, by covering it with " the divine oil of roses." If this 

 were a legitimate conclusion from the text, other authors would cer- 

 tainly have mentioned its existence, especially Pliny, who minutely 

 H— 5 



