— i6 — 



Bay Oil. Bay rum, which is universally popular as a cosmetic 

 for the scalp, is, according to H. Berger 1 ), an excellent preparation 

 for the treatment of the skin in general. Washing the head with 

 bay rum morning and night, and also repeated daily ablutions of 

 the body with bay rum water, or baths in hot water to which 

 bay rum has been added, are said to have an extremely refreshing 

 effect, and to give a feeling of comfort after bodily exertion, 

 such as on marches etc. This is particularly valuable, as Berger 

 himself has found by personal experience during a sojourn in the 

 tropics. Washing the hands with bay rum water, is also said to 

 render good services in cracked skin above the nail-folds. According 

 to Berger, bay rum is unequalled in Seborrhoea sicca capitis, and it 

 is said also to arrest the falling out of the hair, and even to promote 

 the growth of the hair. In the tropics, bay rum has also been found 

 an excellent prophylactic against various skin- eruptions peculiar to the 

 tropics, and as a preventive against mosquitoes. But, according to 

 Berger, these properties only belong to genuine bay rum, produced 

 in St. Thomas. It is difficult to see, however, why a good bay rum 

 manufactured here should have less valuable properties in this respect. 



Betle Oil. When isolating chavibetol from an oil of betle 

 leaves originating from Java, we made the interesting observation that 

 the oil in question contained, in addition to chavibetol, another, solid, 

 phenol, which has up to the present neither been produced synthetically, 

 nor been found in the vegetable kingdom. Although the oil only 

 contained 1,8 to 2 °/ of this substance, and we only had 8 gr. of 

 the pure body at our disposal, we were able to clear up its con- 

 stitution. The oil from which the mixture of phenols was abstracted 

 by shaking with dilute caustic soda, had in the course of years acquired 

 a dark-brown colour, and possessed the following physical constants: 

 d i5 o 1,0325; « D — i°55 / , n D20° i>5i3° 2 - For tne P ure chavibetol, 

 we found after repeated fractionation the following values: di 5 o 1,0690, 

 n D20° I >54 1 34> b. P- 107 to 109 (4 mm. pressure). In a freezing 

 mixture it congealed to a crystalline mass which melted again at 

 8,5°, a fact which had not been observed before. 



For the purpose of obtaining the new phenol, the distillation- 

 residue of chavibetol boiling above 11 3 (4 mm. pressure) was further 

 fractionated, when an oil distilling constantly at 137 to 139 was 

 obtained which solidified on cooling. 



The compound purified from petroleum ether alone, or preferably 

 from benzene and petroleum ether, forms long, colourless, downy 

 needles of the m. p. 48 to 49 , and the b. p. 139 (4 mm. pressure). 

 Its alcoholic solution is coloured deep green by ferric chloride. An 



x ) Therap. Monatsh. 21 (1907), 22 1« 



