148 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



The edition of 1818 does not mention the plant or 

 oil at all. 



In studying the pharmacopeial record of gaultheria 

 oil, in connection with its materia medica and dis- 

 pensatory history, the fact becomes apparent that: oil 

 of gaultheria was made in a primitive way by country 

 people (as is still largely the case), about the beginning 

 of this century. Photographs of the crude still used in 

 the distillation of the oil of birch have been presented 

 by Dr. Charles G. Merrell to the Lloyd Library. 



Oil of gaultheria was introduced into the list of known 

 essential oil-bearing plants of America in the first (1820) 

 Pharmacopeia, but was not described. Following this, 

 such works as the Dispensatories and American Materia 

 Medicas gave the oil a complimentary position, but it 

 remained of no importance until brought forward by 

 the analysis of Swaim's Panacea. Not until long after 

 1820 did any European Dispensatory or Pharmacopeia 

 give it position. 



SUMMARY. Oil of gaultheria was distilled for drug- 

 gists previous to 1820, but no public description of the 

 apparatus or method was printed. 



The Pharmacopeia of the United States, 1820, gave 

 the first authoritative process of making it. 



It was prominently introduced to the profession by 

 the New York Medical Society, 1827, under whose 

 auspices the oil was established, as a characteristic con- 

 stitutent of Swaim's Panacea, the report being pub- 

 lished in 1829. 



We know of no pharmacopeial or authoritative di- 

 rection for making oil of gaultheria from any source 

 whatever which precedes the first (1820) Pharma- 

 copeia of the United States, and have discovered no 



