NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL 

 PERFUMES 1 



BY DB. MAX HEIM 



SCARCELY any natural sensation strikes deeper into 

 man 's elemental being than the perception of the fragrance 

 of flowers, and from primeval times and in all lands he 

 has cherished the art of conserving their too fleeting per- 

 fume and adding its grace to his environment. Starting 

 in Egypt this art spread to the sunny land of Greece, and 

 from there reached Italy, where, at the time of the first 

 emperors, it was practised to such an immoderate extent 

 that Vespasian, that wise observer of men, found occasion 

 for the saying: ''Mulieres bene olent, si nihil olent" 

 * * ^omerujsmejl^ good when they smell of nothing. ' ' 



But, like many^other "wisePmeh ^Before^amTlrfter him, 

 Vespasian was not in accordance with general opinion; 

 and from the Middle Ages until the present time perfumes 

 have enjoyed constant favor with the fair sex. Although 

 they are no longer employed upon the individual person 

 in such extravagant quantities as in earlier times, their 

 use has become more general, and their manufacture has 

 become an important industry of to-day. 



If we inquire into the principles of the production of 

 these perfumes, we find that we have to-day, in many re- 

 spects, the same path to follow which was trodden ages 

 ago. Aside from the use of fragrant flowers, leaves, and 

 especially balsams and resins, simply dried, as perfuming 

 agents as in the case of incense the process was soon 

 reached of impregnating with the fresh flowers of fragrant 

 plants some liquid which absorbed and kept the perfume. 



Published in Prometheus, translation in Scientific American Sup- 

 plement, September 17, 1904. 



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