132 MODERN SCIENCE READER 



Certain fats and oils were soon recognized as the best 

 mediums for this, and such were specially prepared we 

 might almost say made aseptic by the Greek physician 

 Dioscorides, under Nero, through boiling with water, salt 

 and wine. If freshly-dried flowers are immersed in a fat 

 or oil thus purified, and slightly warm, and if they are 

 replaced after a few hours by new ones, and this process 

 repeated several times, there is obtained in the first case 

 a product resembling a salve or a pomade, and in the second ^ 

 an oil, which retains the perfume of the flowers in greater 

 or less degree, according to the quantity employed, but 

 always in perfect naturalness and purity. 



This old method, with some improvements, is employed 

 at the present time to a very large extent, especially in 

 the south of France, in the neighborhood of Cannes, Grasse 

 and Nice. The most delicate perfumes, such as those of 

 the jasmine, the violet, the tube rose and the orange blos- 

 som, are thus fixed, and sent in enormous quantities to all 

 parts of the world in the form of pomades or oils. In the 

 latter case the ancient method of production is indicated 

 by the designation huiles antiques. 



Although the natural fragrance is most perfectly repro- 

 duced in these products, their form is not suitable for all 

 purposes. The favorite form of flower odors is that of the 

 volatile "perfumery," so called, with which garments, 

 handkerchiefs, gloves, etc., can be moistened, which would 

 of course be impossible with the oils and pomades. This 

 perfumery, technically called "extracts" or "spirits," 

 results from a simple process of shaking .the pomades and 

 huiles antiques with pure alcohol, which does not dissolve 

 fats or fixed oils, but upon continued and intimate contact 

 absorbs the incorporated fragrance and becomes entirely 

 saturated with it. The alcohol is mechanically separated 

 from the oil by filtration, and a double product is obtained 

 an alcoholic, perfectly volatile and pure "extract" and 

 a residue of weak but pleasantly fragrant and utilizable 

 fat or oil. 



