144 



Notes on scientific research in the domain 

 of the Essencial Oils. 



General. 



The Nobel prize for Chemistry for the year 1910 has been awarded 

 to Prof. Wallach for his pioneer-work in Research in the domain of the 

 essential oils and their constituents. We may be permitted, in this place 

 also, to express our pleasure at the recognition thus shown of the un- 

 wearied activity in our branch of knowledge, — an activity extending over 

 more than a quarter of a century — of this man of science. On De- 

 cember 12 th 1910, when the prize was presented, Wallach 1 ) gave an address 

 to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at Stockholm in which, in 

 connection with the work of the great Swedish Chemist Berzelius, he 

 dealt with the history of the essential oils and their investigation. In 

 particular, Wallach gave a brief survey of his own research-work and a 

 prospect into the further development of the chemistry of essential oils. 

 Here, Wallach holds, the aim of the work of the future will be twofold; 

 the exploitation of the newer synthetic methods and their application in 

 allied branches of chemistry to the synthesis of other substances of similar 

 structure and odour, and the investigation of the mode of action of the 

 oil-yielding plants and of the manner in which oil is formed in the plant- 

 cells by synthesis or decomposition. 



In an article on the economic plants of the German Colony of Togo, 

 G. Volkens 2 ) enumerates a series of plants which contain volatile oils or 

 produce odoriferous flowers. 



The plants are the following: — 



Andropogon Schxnanthus, Fluck. et Hanb., non L. 3 ). So far the culti- 

 vation of this grass, the parent -plant of palmarosa oil, has not pro- 

 gressed beyond the experimental stage in Togo. 



Cyperus longus, L. (N. O. Cyperaceas). The underground rhizome-tubers 

 of this plant, which are of a brownish-black colour and are covered with 

 root-fibres, contain an essential oil with a faint odour of violets. The 

 natives grind the tubers to powder which they mix with the resin of Da- 

 niellia thurifera, Bth. and other resins. The mixture is strewn on glowing 

 coal, above which garments are suspended for the purpose of allowing 

 them to become permeated with the perfume thus generated. 



*) Les prix Nobel en 1910. 



2 ) Notizblatt des Kgl. bot. Gartens und Museums zu Berlin-Dahlem. Appendix XXII, 

 No. 3, 30th November 1910, p. 70 e. s. 



3 ) Comp. Report April 1907, 33. 



