VEGETABLE SUBSTITUTES FOR SOAP 



its virtue as a capital cleansing agent was well un- 

 derstood, and they employed it for scouring cloth 

 and removing stains. They gave it, in monkish 

 fashion, a Latin name, herba fullonum, which in 

 English translation, Fuller's herb, is sometimes still 

 assigned it in books; but in every-day speech the 

 rustic English name, Soapwort, is more usual. In 

 our Southern States a pretty local name that has 

 come to my notice is "My Lady's Wash-bowl." It 

 was in a Saponaria, I believe, that the glucoside 

 saponin — the detergent principle of the soap plants 

 — ^was first discovered and given its name. That 

 was about a century ago, and since then chemists 

 have identified the same substance existing in vary- 

 ing degrees in several hundred species throughout 

 the world.^ In most plants, however, the quantity 

 is too small to make a serviceable lather. 



3N. Kruskal. "Soaps of the Vegetable Kingdom," in "The 

 Pharmaceutical Era," Vol. XXXI, Nos. 13, 14. 



183 



